Grandpa's house

One of the things we love about living here in Idaho again is that we're near my grandparents and we get to go visit them. Before my family moved to Pittsburgh in '95 (from here, Idaho Falls), we spent so many good times there. It was my favorite place to go as a child. We would roam around the farm, hide in "the forest", play all kinds of games, climb the trees, play by the canal, go tubing in the canal, pick rasberries and strawberries and eat them, have sleep-overs in the big yard, play "Ghost in the Graveyard" late into the night, and all kinds of other things. So when we had yet another day of glorious sunshine today (yeah!!) I decided it would be fun to take the kids out to Grandpa's to visit and to "explore" the farm. They loved it! I mean Parker had been out there last summer, but since Maddie wasn't even walking then she of course hadn't. So now that they could both be out there running around and with Parker being older and way more interested in every little thing he sees, it was a lot different. Parker had to go see the tractors first of course.

Then Parker had to use the potty, so I took him to the old out house. Okay, just kidding. I didn't make him use it (he didn't really have to go), I just got them to get their pictures by it. :-) (It's filled in and everything by now of course) Then we made our way over to some old equipment that's still laying around.

And finally we ended up at the tire swing. Us kids used to spend HOURS on this thing when we were young, swinging way up high, twisting it up so we'd make ourselves sick spinning around and around. So it was fun to see Maddie having fun on it (Parker was too busy looking at other stuff so he didn't get on).

It was so fun to get pictures of the kids out on the farm where I used to play when I was little! I had such a fun childhood that I kind of wish we could guarantee my kids to grow up here like I did. But alas we can only guarantee them two years (while Ben finishes school). I guess that will have to do for now. I'm just glad we can give them at least that much! I love my grandparents so much!!

On a side note, at the end of this last semester for Ben (a week ago), he had to go up to BYU-Idaho to hand in one last thing and so me and the kids went with him. We got another picture of the family up there on campus, so here it is: