What a FUN Weekend!

Our Labor Day weekend turned out to be jam packed with fun starting Thursday. My niece Dylan celebrated her 7th birthday. We spent time with family and had a great time hanging out eating great food. My sister in law is an awesome cook.

Saturday we invited friends to tag along to Celebration Park near Melba. The Mannings and Sartells were up to it. We had lots of fun and arrived early to beat most of the heat. The Mannings have twin boys that are 18 months old and the Sartells have a little girl that will be 3 next month. Gunnar loves Paige. They have the best time together. They are little buddies.


First we headed to the bridge for a little hike. It was a really neat bridge. Gunnar and Paige had a blast running along it.

To continue on we needed to go down this little hill. Ann was worried about her balance but she made it safely down. Could you imagine having twins. I know some of you reading do have twins but there is no rest for one or the other. Each person gets a kid. Unlike our situation where Jeff took Brecken in a front carrier and I carried the camera. No rest with twins. They are awesome people. We met them when they bought a house at the end of our street almost 5 years ago this December. They were remodeling and we got to know them through helping them with the tile. Ann and I have had the opportunity to serve in church callings as well. This summer, we watched Travis do a half ironman in Boise. That was intense. Ann runs marathons, half marathons...she just runs or walks. They are complete outdoors people and fun to be with.

The guys encouraged Gunnar to run up this hill. He took off and kept going until I told him to come back. Crazy kid insisted on wearing his flip flops.

Paige decided that she would follow. She is so cute and tiny and follows Gunnar everywhere.

Gunnar also loves being with her too. Her parents, Jared and April, are also extreme outdoors people. If we ever needed outdoor equipment, I am sure that we can ask them and they have it. The Mannings and Sartells actually knew each other from Spokane when they were in college. They have remained great friends throughout the years. The Sartells recently moved here from Bend area into our ward. It was pretty exciting and before long we became friends with them too.

My family is starting to think that Gunnar is attracted to cute little blonds. Apparently at preschool he loves to play with a cute little blond named Vegas.

All along our walk, we saw little baby lizards. They were pretty cute and if you catch one, their tails fall off. We were unable to catch one and only saw babies.

The park has a little visitors center where we decided to eat lunch. You can also camp overnight there and see petroglyphs. They also had these awesome arrow thrower things called Atlatls. They were AWESOME!! Jared and I were loving it. Jeff continued to talk to the park guy and never whipped out the camera to get an awesome shot of me. It was fun! However the next day my arms hurt so bad at church. Gunnar and Paige wanted to swim in the river but there really wasn't a beach area so that never panned out. Overall we had a blast! Definately a fun place to visit as a family if you live around here.

We left the park and headed to Mindy's. All of my siblings were headed there for dinner. We headed over early because there was no sense in driving home if we were already half way there. We had an awesome dinner thanks to Rillz and Mindy and the rest of us with the sides. The weather was also perfect. We were also able to Skype in with my dad who is in Germany. That was fun. Gunnar and Brecken got to see grandpa.
One of the real reasons for this get together was the hot air balloons afterwards. About 7 or so years ago, Boise put on the Boise River Festival. It was huge! They would bring in famous singers for free concerts in the park. They would have a parade with big Macy parade type balloons and a river float parade that originally was on the river than moved to the streets. They had carnival rides and food. One of my favorite parts, however, were the hot air balloons. Every morning the balloons would take off. My dad would take whoever wanted to go down there. It was fun walking around watching them blow up then take off. The on the last night, they would light them up in the dark for all to see. It was always so neat. This year, the balloons were brought back. I saw the commercial and wanted to go. Apparently all 4 of us kids had the exact same idea. Thus the food before hand and then the exodus to the park. Mindy is about 5-10 minutes away. It all made sense.

We had fun sitting and waiting for them to blow up and light up. It is always fun to talk to family. The balloons were actually low in number but pretty non the less. There were SO many people but I am glad that we went. I really hope they do this every year or more often. Let's not wait another 7 years Boise. Afterwards we headed back to Mindy's and had rootbeer floats and celebrated Brent's birthday.

Sunday, we had the Mannings and Sartells over for dinner after church. It all started with the corn that April had and then we pooled our resources from there. We have the house that works the best for this type of thing so April volunteered us as hostess. This really was her idea but it all worked out. We had sandwich melts, fruit salad, salsa, and corn on the cob. This was our 2nd or 3rd success random pulled together last minute dinner and I am sure not the last. Gunnar was thrilled to see Paige again and Kenda, their black lab, was able to hang out with Diesel.

Monday we had both sides of our family over for Gunnar's cookout. He was looking forward to this for months. Pretty much after the Memorial Day cookout. Still not sure why he calls it cookouts. We don't. Anyway, we supplied hamburgers/hotdogs and everyone pulled through again with the sides. It was so yummy and we had so much food. Jeff invited our neighbors over last minute and it was fun to get to know them better. We had lots of kids over much to Gunnar's delight.

By the time Monday night rolled around, I was exhausted but happy that we had a great weekend as a family and with family.