Rexburg or Bust!

On Thursday morning (July 2nd) we woke up, fed the kids and then we were off to Rexburg. At this point in the trip we were leaving Kristen in Provo, my parents were going to Logan to see some friends that served in one of their missions and then they were staying the night with my dad's sister before heading on to Burley. So, Julie and I and our 6 little ones headed off to see one of my best friends in the whole world who is living in Rexburg. We grew up across the street together our whole lives, her parents even still live there. This whole roadtrip came about because at the end of last summer she sent me an email that said "You and Julie should plan a roadtrip up here next summer and come see me." Not sure if she is now sorry she suggested it but we had a great time anyway. It was about a 4 1/2 hour drive from Provo and the kids all did awesome. She had lunch ready to go as soon as we got there, which was great because the kids were all hungry. After lunch we headed off to the park to let the kids run and get some energy out, they had lots after being cooped up in the car. We also tried doing the splash pad but it happened to be closed that day for maintenance. When it was too hot to play at the park anymore we headed back to Raygon's and the kids were happy just to play with her toys and with Kaleb and Holden. Raygon fixed a great dinner that night, chicken and corn on the cob, and then they started a fire in the back yard for the kids to make s'mores. This became a nightly tradition while we were there. Andy was a great sport to get the fire going every night, it definitely made the kids day.Enjoying being outside!

Bring on the s'mores.

Ry and Griffin got up early and headed up stairs to help Raygon in the kitchen for breakfast.

Friday we drove up to see the Rexburg temple. It was a beautiful day!
Raygon can just walk to the end of her street and see it up on the hill.

Check out these 2! Yikes!

Friday we packed up sandwiches for lunch and headed out to Bear World. It's basically a zoo that you drive through and they most of the animals that you would see at Yellowstone! Sounds perfect to me! All of the kids loved this place! We drove through once and then stopped and rode the rides they had and went through the petting zoo and then we drove through it 2 more times before leaving! We definitely got our money worth. The kids counted no less than 30 bears of all sizes, there were both black and brown bears too. I was a little frightened the first time driving through, we obviously had to keep our windows rolled up so these pictures aren't great. But keep in mind we were either taking them through a dirty wind shield or tinted windows. We were all fascinated by this place and how close we got to some of these bears. We watched one bear lick of some smushed bugs from the car ahead of us.

These 2 pictures are reversed, we watched this bear stand on his hind legs and scratch his back on this post. Which is really funny to us because just about all of Devin's brothers and parent's use door jams like this to scratch their backs. So I had to take a picture to show Dev. When he was done scratching his back he crossed the street right in front of us.

This is a chuck, I thought it was funny how he is just chilling on this fence!

Buffalo

Here the kids are on a Huckleberry ride

The petting zoo. We walked in here and I immediately put Meg down to walk and one of these baby goats came over and butted her right in the butt. It didn't knock her over but she was definitely bothered by it. She gave him a look like "what did I do to you?"

Meg got quite adventurous in the petting zoo part and wandered quite a distance from us to explore. I watched her the whole time but she found some birds and a big pot belly pig.
She even reached down and pet the pig.

The bear cubs were kept in a separate area than the big bears.

I didn't need a sign to tell me that, duh! Other things we saw that I didn't include pictures of are deer, wild turkeys, elk, lots of geese, antelope, mountain goats and even a couple of wolves.

Saturday was the 4th and it was great to be in a small town where this Holiday was still celebrated in a big way. We started the day by going to a really long parade! It was hot and a few of the kids ended up leaving early with Julie and went and sat in the car.

Check out the look I'm getting here! Raygon made her this cute festive outfit to wear!

All set up waiting for it to start.

Once these boys realized they were throwing candy they were all about it.

Checking out eachother's loot.

This gigantic shopping cart was one of my faves!
So clever!

These carwash guys were hilarious too! They had a choreographed routine to the Carwash song!
Very funny! They were great sports!

Andy's parent's had a float in the parade, Kaleb led the pack in this little blue Rhino! So cute!

After the parade we went home and the kids changed into swim suits and we headed back to try the splash pad again! We were hot! It was open and the kids had a blast The local fire station also had a ladder truck at the park and you could climb up to the top of the ladder if you wanted, that was fun to watch. The kids liked talking to the firemen.

Then at night we opted out of driving to Idaho Falls, which we were told has an amazing fireworks show but people had been set up saving their spots for at least 2 1/2 days. We watched the local show from Raygon's front yard and Andy did a few that we picked up from a stand. The kids would have been happy with just boxes and boxes of sparklers.

Gunner, he is hilarious! He doesn't like the loud noises, hence the ear protection!

Kids were all bathed and in their jammies waiting for the show to start!

I took all these pictures from Raygon's blog. Thanks Rayg!

When we were done with fireworks we loaded the kids up and headed off to Burley. As soon as we pulled away from the house Liam asked me for a pen and paper, I didn't have one to give him so I asked what he needed it for and he said "I want to write Raygon and Andy on it so I never forget them." What a sweet little guy. Also in Burley he kept telling his cousins about his friend Andy, not sure who he was talking about I asked "Andy who?" to which he replied
"you know Raygon and Andy!"
It was about 10:30 at night and we knew the kids would sleep the whole way, we had about a 2 1/2 drive ahead of us. As we passed through Idaho Falls we were again grateful we opted out of that! Holy Cow there were a lot of people there and people with little kids were walking down the highway. It would have taken us forever to even get out of there to get on the road. About 15 minutes out of Idaho Falls I got pulled over by an Idaho state policeman who asked if I was impaired! I informed him that no it was just the crappy Idaho roads, he then lectured me and sent us on our way. This really concerned me because if he really thought I was impaired he should have had me out of the car making me walk a straight line. I had 6 sleeping kids in the car and he just let me go when I told him that I hadn't had anything to drink! Yikes!