Idaho and summertime fun and a long-winded post

We left last Saturday for a little vacation to visit our friends the Wilkison's in Boise.  The kids were super excited to fly on an airplane and have ten stay-home days (we came back on July 4th and I've taken the rest of the week off) and see some new friends.  We hadn't seen the Wilkison's since Will and their oldest son were almost 2 and almost 3.  Since then we've collectively added three more kiddos to the bunch, so we had 5 kids under the age of 6 and it was a blast.  We saw the sights in Boise, played at a spray park, visited the zoo, boated and fished and didn't catch much, and played and played and played and played.

This picture was taken about 2 hours after we arrived in Boise.  You can see that the kids were really shy about making friends and getting to know each other.  Yeah. Right.  They went from "Hi, I'm Will" to shooting each other with giant water guns and epic battles with foam swords in about 3.5 seconds. 

Picking cherries.  Be forewarned, this is the first of many MANY pictures of the cherry orchard. I was just so surprised to see trees that actually have fruit on them.  Or have fruit when they are supposed to.  We have one poor little apple tree in our backyard that has yet to make so much as a blossom in the 3 years we've had this house. 

Cherries!  On trees!  I thought this was a lot of fruit until I found some other trees.  Captivating photojournalism, right?

Another example of awesome photography.  Who is it on that ladder?  Could be anyone since we can't see their faces.  I'm pretty sure this is Will and Glenn because I remember wanting to memorialize the moment in case Will tumbled off the ladder and we had to explain to the ER staff exactly how it happened.  "Well see Dr., my husband thought it was a good idea for a 5-yr old to stand on the second highest rung of a ladder whilst picking Ranier cherries that were only a $1.10/pound!"

Reina and her bucket.  She couldn't carry it by herself but darnit, it was her bucket. 



More cherries on trees!  We ended up picking about 20 pounds of cherries and this is one of the reasons why.  If you wander around the orchard long enough, you find more trees with really juicy cherries that are just begging to be picked and put in your bucket.  Never mind that even a group of 9 people can't eat 20 lbs of cherries in five days.  Well, they can certainly try but then ummm, certain stomach issues arise. 



This young man was banned from eating anymore cherries after the second day of our trip because, well, you know. 



We went to the Boise Zoo, saw lots of animals and fed some really friendly goats.  Reina loved them. 



Happy kids at the zoo. 



Reina disgruntled about something.  Shortly after this picture was taken, we lost her for about five minutes.  It was a small zoo and she didn't get far and when Glenn found her, some nice person was walking her to the lost and found because she told them, "I'm lost."  Hi Grandparents, we haven't told you that story yet, huh?  All's well that end's well. 



For an extra dollar, you could buy a handful of grub worms and feed them to this Sun Bear through a little tube.  Guess who did NOT participate in this activity?  Yep, the Bronco Baby's Mom.  Shudder. 



I should make a whole post out of pictures of Reina looking disgruntled about something. 



Our last day of the trip was spent boating.  It was a great day!  Not many fish were caught but not for lack of trying.  We all got to splash around and get some sun and it was a great way to wrap up the trip.



Reina loved the speed of the jet boat.

Will conked out at the end. 

(Most of) the Whole Gang.

So we're back in the real world and plowing through loads of laundry and chores and routine and blargh.  Reina is getting her third set of tubes in her ears next week. We saw the ENT a few weeks ago and he ordered some allergy tests and an x-ray of her sinuses to rule out any other issues besides multiple ear infections. I've told this story a million times but when Reina had her blood drawn for the allergy test, she didn't cry, she barely flinched and she just sat there and watched the nurses draw the blood. The girl is not scared of needles and apparently has a pretty high pain tolerance which means she's going to come back from her first semester of college with one of those sleeve tattoos. I'm going to have to come up with a strategy to prevent that. Maybe I'll tell her that tattoos are actually licked onto your skin by spiders? Maybe moths play a role somehow? Or tattoos are only applied in tunnels? Help me here!

Back to the ENT appointment. So her allergy tests came back negative, her x-ray was clear and the doctor said he was a little reluctant to a third set of ear tubes because sometime there can be scarring, blah blah blah. He said that if she came down with another ear infection this summer, then he would go ahead and do the procedure. The doctor wanted to a quick look at her ears before we left and voila she had another ear infection so her surgery is scheduled for next week. The risk of damage to the ear from constant ear infections is higher than the risk from the surgery so I'm on board. Hopefully this will be her last set and she'll grow out of it like her brother did.

In other news, Tootsie is such a great dog! She is really doing her job of making Trigger as tired as possible and also teaching him to be more obedient along the way. As my dad says, I'm like "that hippie who got her dog a dog." Yep. But she's turned out to be a great addition to our family. She's very sweet and great with the kids. Reina spent about 15 minutes trying to get Tootsie to wear a watch (I know.) and Tootsie just laid their patiently until Reina moved onto another project. She and Trigger really have fun too. Sometimes too much fun.

Dog wrestling and the innards of some poor stuffed animal strewn about in a gruesome scene.  Luckily, it was an actual dog toy that was the casualty and not one of Reina's prized collection.

What's going on with Will?  He's such a neat kid right now.  Not "neat" in the keeps-his-room-clean sense but he's growing up so much and coming up with the funniest observations.  His brain is working overtime to get everything figured out.  He's starting to read. How have I forgotten to memorialize this on the blog? At school, they have him reading "Bob Books" and he's working his way through each book. He brought one home a few weeks ago and listening to him read it made me a little teary-eyed. He's growing up! He's still 5 because toilet humor is funny and certain scenes in Pixar movies are still scary and require a nearby lap to sit on, but he's really growing up this summer. 

Another quick Reina story.  I wrote last time that she's in a naked phase.  Her current favorite thing to do after the bath is to wrap up in a towel and then come downstairs and find me and yell "Surprise!  I'm naked!"  And then I have to shriek and she giggles and does it about four more times before I finally make her go upstairs and get her pajamas on.  Glenn thinks that "feral" is a good word to describe Reina at this stage.  I agree. 

Finally, we are having a extremely hot and dry summer.  There are fires burning all around Wyoming and Colorado.  There aren't any super close to us but the smoke is present every day and it gives everything a very eerie quality.  We are supposed to have wet and cool weather this weekend that we hope will help get all of the fires under control.  Send all of your rain our way!