Camelsback Park

I know it's out of order, but yesterday was so fun, I wanted to write about it while it was still fresh in my blogging mind! We finished up Spring Break yesterday with a family outing day! The kids drew a chore a day, and a reward a day. Yesterday was Dad's day off, and he also ran 20 miles!!!!, so to celebrate, we had an extra good reward. We went to Boise Fry Company for lunch, then onto Powell's Sweete Shoppe, then to Camelsback park to play. Archie skipped his nap, and so did Dad, but they were both such troopers!!

Camelsback has a huge, STEEP hill with a big sand trail leading straight up. We've been there before, but we've never attempted the hill. But this time, with Powell's sugar running through our veins, we gave it a go. It was so hard!!! With the sand, it's one step up, and one slide back. 

 The kids and I did it though, TWICE!!

Mike and his 20 mile legs didn't try, but he watched Archie like a champ:) That's him with Archie on the left, he's in the middle in an orange shirt. Elliott climbed it 2.5 times, there he is on the top in the right picture, he's the little red spot in the middle peeking over the top of the hill!!

Lucy and Elliott both learned a good lesson in gravity as they tried to run down the hill. That's Lucy sitting in the middle on the bottom after quite a fall.

Archie loved it too! He would climb a quarter of the way up and then get frustrated that he couldn't walk up any more, his little legs literally couldn't walk up any more! Then his frustrations would pass as he discovered how fun it was to bum-scoot down the hill. 

There were scrapes to bandaged and sand to wash out of clothes and hair, but, as Elliott said "Even though I got hurt Mom, I think it was totally WORTH IT!"

Fun Times in February!!

Before we get to the February Fun, I have to post two more pictures illustrating Archie's uncanny ability to get stuck. You can see in the second picture that he really enjoys being stuck. The first picture...not so much.

Gramma and Papa came up for a week in February, and we had Valentine Cookie decorating fun, and cousin slumber party fun.

Mike's sweet Valentine for Lucy and Mommy.

The kids got little valentines for the whole week, and a new valentine on their door every day of February until Valentine's day. It was fun.

We went to another hockey game; almost front row seats!

And had the first of hopefully many, family walks.

Lucy had her second of 3 black belt tests, which she PASSED!!

Archie kept being cute.

Then, Lucy and I were off to Salem, Oregon for Aunt Juliet's baptism! Lucy had fun with Baby Kollister, and all her other relatives, and she even got to sing with Aunt Ruth and Surrogate Aunt Tracy in the musical number!!

Here we are with "double-cousins" Tom and Margie.

This is a picture of some Johnson girls in front of the silliest proportioned mannequin we found in Portland!! Finally, a store that sells clothes for "real" women!! Hee Hee.

Juliet and Tracy after the baptism.

While we were in Salem, Mike kept the boys busy, or kept busy with the boys...depends on how you look at it!

Lucy had to get her tongue clipped so she can do the speech therapy exercises to get her pallate aligned so her bite will be as it should be...whew! Our bishop is a facial plastic surgeon and an ENT, so he performed the procedure. She was so brave. No tears, and healed up so quickly. Here is a dramatically different before and after:

I sneak in while Archie's sleeping sometimes and take pictures of his fun positions. Here is a mini-montage.

Elliott used to do this for hours. Archie got a good 5 minutes of fun out of it.