Embracing Idaho!

Today is Josh and Elizabeth's turn to blog.  But we took a lot of pictures this week, so I thought I would go ahead and post again.

 

On Monday Dad and I took a day trip up to Island Park.

We have matching sunglasses!

 

 

We found it difficult to find places--the map we were given wasn't very accurate.

But we went on a short bike ride on the north side of the park.  It was beautiful!

 

After a long day of driving around, we took a different route back to Rexburg to check out a bike trail someone told us about.  We parked at Bear Gulch and rode north along the Warm River.  It was late in the day, so we didn't go real far, but it was beautiful!

 

Monday night Josh and Elizabeth got here . . . they were very sunburned!

We went to the Taco Bus restaurant for dinner.

 

On Tuesday Dad and I spent the day in Idaho Falls. 

We met with our builder and ran errands.

But that night we went with Josh and Elizabeth to get some of the World's Best Corndogs.  Dad congratulated them.  Pa, ha!

 

On Wednesday Josh and Elizabeth hung out at our house.  As you are well aware, they did a count of how many pictures I have of everyone in our home.  But let me state for the record--how many pictures I have of each of you is NOT a reflection of how much I love all of you!

 

When we were in Island Park, everyone rode ATVs.  So Wednesday evening we went to an ATV store to check them out.  Dad wanted to find a good one he could take the grandkids on!

 

 

 

On Thursday Dad and I decided to head back to Bear Gulch to ride a little further than we did on Monday.  The trail is about 12 miles northeast of Ashton and south of Mesa Falls.

 

The first four miles is uphill all the way as you ride parallel to the river.  Then it levels off as you ride through flat fields.  When we were about 4.64 miles into the ride, we ran into a bunch of cows that were blocking the path.  There was a big one that kept staring us down!

 

You can't see them, but there were about eight cows right behind Dad.  And the big one on the left just kept staring at us!  We decided not to try and go through them.  So we turned around and took a different path.

 

 

 

We ended up riding 11 miles.  It was beautiful and fun.

We stopped in Ashton at the local hamburger/shake place on the way back.

Bike riding and potatoes--life is good.

 

 

That night we went to the county fair!

Mexican corn--yum!

 

In the arena there was a competition to see how much weight a team of horses could pull.  In this picture they are pulling 6,000 pounds!

 

After each team of horses pulled, they would have a local football team come out to see if they could pull the same weight.  Here the team is also pulling 6,000 pounds. 

 

Josh is trying a deep fried Twinkie.

 

We visited the animals and got pictures and videos for Afton and Eliza.

 

 

Late-night trip to Taco Bell.

 

Friday I didn't get any pictures.  But we got to go to the temple with Josh and Elizabeth in the morning.  In the afternoon we closed on our lot.  We are officially land owners!  After that we saw The Cokeville Miracle with Josh and Elizabeth and then went out to dinner.  Fun day!

 

On Saturday Dad and I went down to Pocatello.  Our builder had a house in the Parade of Homes we checked out.  We brought our bikes in hopes of doing a bike ride.  We started on City Creek trail--only to discover it was a true mountain bike trail--for which we were not equipped or capable!  We rode almost a half mile up . . . then turned around and went back down!

 

 

So we stopped in Idaho Falls on the way home and rode the Snake River trail.  It was beautiful and fun.  We rode 8.2 miles.

 

It's been a great week.  We are really enjoying having the flexibility to spend time together and explore Idaho while we can.  And it was really fun having Josh and Elizabeth with us this week.