Potato Harvest

Only in Idaho would the schools all let out for one and a half weeks so the farmer's children could help harvest the potatoes. What does that mean for those of us who aren't farmers? Fall Break.... We decided to make the best of our one and a half week vacation and do as many fun things as we could while the girls were home from school and preschool. We had a lot of fun enjoying the outdoors while the weather is still warm enough to be outside playing. We love the nature park here in town. It is full of paths lined with trees, ponds filled with ducks, a fun playground, streams and bridges, and many places for little children to explore. The girls invited their friends, Kora & Olivia to come with us to the nature park. We had a picnic, fed the ducks, and went hunting for bugs. The girls were super excited to find that nature path was full of fuzzy black & brown caterpillars. Although it took them some time to build up their courage, they eventually warmed up to the little critters and soon had them crawling all over their hands. They had a hard time saying goodbye to their newfound "pets" but after I explained to them that the caterpillars would never turn into butterflies if they kept them, they reluctantly let them go.

Another day we decided that we would be brave and try making carmel apples for the first time. Although it was a very messy, sticky process the girls and I had a good time making (and even better time eating) the apples. We are definitely going to make them again - probably sooner than later.

And our favorite activity of the week - swimming! We got together with some of our friends and traveled to Jackson Hole, WY (about 1 1/2 hours away) to their recreation center with an indoor aquatic center. This place is amazing! It has two indoor waterslides, a giant kiddie pool, hot tubs, waterfalls, bubble jets, etc. It was the perfect place to spend the day with our kids. Paige had a blast because the maximum depth of water was 3 feet in the kiddie section. She was able to go down the waterslide all by herself, then simply stand up and walk to the other side and do it again. She even went down the giant water slide by herself. (Although I think that one freaked her out a little and she stayed on the little one for the rest of the time). Avery absolutely loved the shallow end of the kiddie pool where the water was only about a foot and a half deep. She was so proud of herself as she walked around, jumped, splashed, etc. She and I went down both water slides together with her sitting on my ever shrinking lap. It was fun, but because I had to land pretty hard at the bottom in order to avoid dunking her face in the water, it was a little too rough of a landing to do too many times. Kennedy was the only one of my children who didn't love swimming. She is deathly afraid of getting her face wet and of course in a kiddie pool filled with children there is bound to be some splashing, etc. She basically clung to my side the entire time we were there. I forced her to go down the big water slide on my lap thinking that if I had her go down once and she realized her face didn't go in she would love it. BAD IDEA - She had a death grip on my neck and screamed the entire way down the huge curvy slide. I could barely unclench her from me in time to lift her up at the end of the slide in order to keep her face from getting wet! She was so mad at me. So my brilliant plan backfired. She eventually forgave me and had some fun with me and Avery in the baby end of the pool. After swimming we went to eat at McDonald's which is always a huge hit with my girls and we drove home. It was a lot of fun because my friend Christina rode with me. We are both pretty busy so we never really get a chance to get together and talk. The long car ride was nice because we got to catch up with each other. All in all it was a great day & a great Potato Harvest break, although I have to say it has been nice to have the girls back in school this week. :)