A Few of My Favorite Things

Olivier Dunrea's children books about baby gosslings Gossie, Gertie, BooBoo and Ollie...SO CUTE. Not only are the stories cute but the artwork is beautiful and the little gosslings are adorable!

Will says "wow" about everything; he gives amazing hugs these days; and he's so skinny that he goes crawling out of his pants on a regular basis.

Cinnamon yogurt pretzels...if you live in Portland, SLC, or anywhere in Idaho you must go to WinCo and buy them. So delish.

Cervils; they're just awesome cats. Harpy Eagles=coolness.

Brad is so creative with ideas to do with the kids. I'm always amazed to see what they've been up to.

Ruth says "Mom" constantly. I love that she wants to tell me about everything. Even though Brad is clearly her favorite parent it just warms my heart that it's "Mom" this and "Mom" that.

Anniversary

So, as I type this we are missing the Oregon beach trip we were supposed to be on with my family. Big bummer. To make it up to Ruth (and us) we went to Boise on Friday for our 5th anniversary. (5 years is kinda mind blowing.) First we went to the zoo. I thought the cervils and monkeys were really cool and Ruth loved the penguins and riding the zebra on the carousel. Will rode around in the hiking backpack with Brad the whole time and was mildly interested in the animals. It was really nice just to be walking around outside with perfect weather!

Then we ate lunch at Donnie Mac's which is an oldie's inspired place that used to be a car garage. Cool atmosphere, stinky food. We made up for that by going to our favorite ice cream place that started in Orem, Utah - Sub Zero! Will was smart and napped through lunch and woke up in time for ice cream!

Then we went to the World Center for Birds of Prey. Really cool. We were the only people walking around which meant we felt like we could take as long as we wanted to stand and stare at the awesome birds they have. Unlike the zoo, Will loved this place. He was excited to see each new bird and was totally engaged. Our new favorite thing: the Harpy Eagle

We figured it was probably time to head home since we'd run out of activities. The kids were not very excited to be back in the car. Then we saw the sign leading us to the Bruneau Dunes, which is something else we wanted to do. And since it was only 4 o'clock we figured we'd head out there.

The kids weren't happy about this either. Ruth bawled the 20 miles out there, the entire time she and I sat at the bottom of the dune watching Brad (with Will in the backpack) hike the dune, and the 20 miles back to the interstate. Will basically cried that whole time too, plus another 30 minutes until he fell asleep. Then we had 10 minutes of quiet until Ruth told us she had to pee.

Brad turned around and just stuck one of Will's diapers on her (she still sleeps in a diaper so we figured this was a GREAT solution) and told her to do her thing. But then she threw a tizzy fit and bawled the last 45 minutes home. Amazingly, the diaper was completely dry when we got home despite the encouragement we kept giving her to relax and let it go. This girl has a bladder of steel!

And since there is a general lack of pictures with Will and Brad from this trip, here are pics of my guys from the previous week: