Boise Trip and Becca's birthday

My birthday was on a Thursday this year, and Greg decided to plan a trip for the family to take.  We went to Boise, ID.  We'd been planning for a couple of months to go to San Francisco with my family in June, so we were excited to get a partial road trip practice.  Before we left I got to open presents.

A new tent!  (Our 3-man tent recently got ripped, and we wanted to get a BIGGER one.)  Its a 10-man, 2 room tent.  And its tall enough to stand in.  It's huge!

 Tate hasn't enjoyed riding in the car recently, so we left just before his nap so he could sleep.  We stopped in Brigham City to get gas and feed Tate, and then set off again.  Next we stopped in Twin Falls for dinner.  We ate at a yummy local burger place.  Then drove past the Temple, and headed to Boise.  We got in late and both boys were sleeping.  It took longer than we were expecting to get there.  We played in the hotel room (which was a 2 queen suite with kitchen and living room!) until the boys seemed tired again.

The next day we set out to go to breakfast and a local park.  While trying to navigate to the breakfast place, we got pulled over going 70 in a 60 (but we hadn't seen a speed limit sign at all since getting on the freeway).  The cop told us that we'd just gotten off the freeway  (again, we had no idea.  we just thought it had split.) and passed 2 speed limit signs and the speed limit would continue to decrease til we reached downtown.  We didn't have our insurance card with us (totally forgot to put it in the car, my bad!) so he gave us a warning for that.  We drove the same way another time (this time knowing where we were going) and saw that the 2 signs we'd missed are *right* behind the signs telling you what the road is and what exit is next.  Poor planning on Boise's road sign people!

Anyway.  The breakfast place was yummy and multiple customers and waitresses commented on how cute our boys are.  Then we went to find the park.  We found it easily enough, sunscreened up and went to play.  Collin played for a while on the playground, and then we headed up the large, steep hill for some hiking.

Collin was way ahead of us.  He's the white and gray spot at the base of the trail.

We wanted to go right up the front, but it was hard work because it wasn't dirt it was loose sand!  We settled for a winding trail to the right.

Overlooking downtown.  There were some pretty amazing views on top!

Family "selfie"

Tate and I went back down the side route to the car so he could eat.

Greg and Collin went down the steep large middle sand trail.

It was slippery, but they had a blast.

Then we played on the playground for a minute after Tate ate.

 After that we hiked some more to the left of the middle trail.  We'd forgotten our baby backpack, so we had to carry Tate.  And Collin "lost all his walking power" so he had to be carried too.  There were some steep parts on our hike, and I was giving Collin a piggy back down one.  I only slid a little once and he said, "I wanna be with Daddy cause he's strong."  I said, "Hey!  I'm strong!"  His response, "Yeah, Mom.  You're strong.  But Daddy's really, REALLY strong!"

We grabbed a pizza downtown, drove through Boise State Campus, and then headed back to our hotel.  We ate and hung out.  We went swimming at the hotel pool.  When we went down to the pool, we were the only ones there for about 5 minutes.  We were joking before that 7-8 is the family time to swim, so there would probably be a lot of families there.  First just some kids showed up and sat in the hot tub.  Then their Dad showed up so they played in the deep end of the pool.  Then a little bit later a man and woman showed up with 8 kids!  The pool was getting crowded.  We had a floaty for Tate, and Collin had his arm floaties and an inner tube.  Collin ditched the inner tube to swim around with Dad, and one of the 8 kids asked if they could use the tube for a 2-3 year old.  We said yes, but then it was passed around the family (which we later discovered was 2 families).  We got cold so we sat in the hot tub for a while.  While there the kids asked if they could use our other floaty, but it's only for babies, and they didn't have a baby.  Then we went back to watch a movie and go to bed.

The next day we decided to go to the zoo.  Its in downtown, and was kinda tricky to find.  The parking lot there is very tiny, so we drove around a long time trying to find a spot.  We happened upon one three from the entrance.  We got everything out and ready and went to stand in line.  While in line, Collin threw up!  It was completely a surprise.  He hadn't seemed sick at all!  We got out of line and talked about what we should do.  He told us that the driving around made his tummy hurt, so we decided that since he hadn't seemed sick before, we'd attempt the zoo.  But if he showed any signs of being sick, we'd leave.  He didn't have any other problems!

This zoo is definitely for kids.  There were lots of spots for play.

It was pretty warm.

Huge turtle!

There were lots of exhibits like this to check out.

Collin got to feed the goats!  We'd put a couple on pieces in his hand and he'd hold it out for the goats.  He was nervous at first, but they thought it was fun and exciting!

Being a good helper!

He rode the carousel twice because the first animal he picked didn't go up and down.

After the zoo we went back to the hotel to try to decide what else to do.  Since neither of us had been to Oregon, we decided to drive over there!

We grabbed dinner at the Panda Express, and then drove around the small farming town.

 Then we drove back to our hotel where we got packed up and hung out.

The drive home was a lot worse than the drive there.  The drive there was long, but for the most part the boys were good.  The drive back, Tate was awake for more of it and he needed to be entertained.  We missed our exit at Twin Falls, and had to back track 11 miles because that was closer than going to the next place.  And our Rogue was acting up on the way back.  We'd forgotten that when driving high speeds for a long time, it won't down shift.  So if you've been driving a while and then need to climb a long hill, it won't shift down.  Instead the speed just slowly decreases.  At one point we were going 45 in an 80, with our flashers on of course!  This made the drive take a lot longer.  We decided that it probably wasn't the best idea to take the Rogue to San Francisco and now have to decide what to do!  We've thought about taking the Mazda but its so small.  Renting a bigger car, but that would be a lot of money.  Or just selling the Rogue now and buying a new car, but we only have 3 weeks!  What to do?!

Our trip to Boise was a lot of fun!  It was laid back and we got to spend some quality time as a family!