Field Trips

We were running out of time with Vivien and still had so many things on our summer to-do list.
The only way we could fit in all in was to do a week of field trips.

Blackfoot Museum and Idaho Falls Museum

Life doesn't get much more Idaho than standing in front of a huge potato.

For such a small museum dedicated to one vegetable it actually has quite interesting collections.  Our favorites were the Pringles-through-the-years collection and the variety of Mr. Potato Head characters.  The equipment didn't interest the kids much other than to know it was all part of our one week Spud Harvest break from school every October.

Guitar Exhibit in Idaho Falls

I wondered how exciting an exhibit dedicated to one instrument could really be but after a potato exhibit the guitar exhibit was spectacular.  Actually, it really was interesting and we all found something that caught our attention.

The boys enjoyed the touch screen that allowed them to choose from a variety of acoustic and electric guitars to listen to as well as the vibration machine that showed how fast the strings actually vibrate to make the sound (the thickest string was awesome and deep).  They also had a good time smacking flip flop soles onto the pvc pipes to hear a scale full of notes.

After wandering through so much "do not touch" stuff it was nice to get to the children's section of the museum.

While the boys meandered on ahead of us, Vivien and I took our time taking pictures and 

really catching the vision of historical Idaho.

 IJump and IHop

Dodge ball was hilarious!  Those kids really went after each other.  Justin was the hardest one to hit because he would flip out of the way but Hyrum waited until he went down and nailed him pretty good.

Deep pits of foam blocks bring out their best flips and flops. 

After our hour of jumping was up we hopped across town for a breakfasty lunch.

A trip to America would not be complete without a visit to IHop.  

Hospital Tour

Having spent plenty of time in hospitals, Vivien really wanted a tour of our American hospital.  By her description, most of the hospitals that she has been to (even though they have updated equipment) are still stuck in the 70's as far as buildings, style and colors are concerned.  We had a great tour guide with a good sense of humor and he took us around most of the hospital, even through some "employee only" staircases and offices.  Initially, the hospital staff didn't seem to want us looking around but after we explained the reason for our tour they were very nice.

The secretaries in the emergency entrance were very nice and quite chatty.  They even gave Vivien a hospital bracelet and as we walked out the emergency doors we snapped a quick pic of her in a wheelchair.  She got an immediate, worried email from her sister after sending that photo to her with little explanation.

Madison County Fair

Vivien and I went to the fair by ourselves.  It was nice to wander through all the entries and visit some of the booths.  Vivien spent about 2 minutes in the animal section and decided that getting her shoes dirty and smelling animal poop was not worth seeing all those prize winning chickens, rabbits, cows and sheep.  I agreed with her this year.  After having just been at the sanitary hospital, the barn was a little much.

Teton Vu

Double feature on a beautiful Rexburg night.

Kate, Mike, Logan and Korben stayed for Despicable Me 2.

  Bret, Erika, Vivien and Justin watched it with them and then stayed for Wolverine.

Getting Naked

Vivien and Justin loved to embarrass me during each shopping trip by loudly asking (with as many people near us as possible), "can we get naked, mom, pleeeease!"  Soon, I just joined in with them instead of getting embarrassed.  Vivien and I could not hold back our laughter as we exclaimed in Albertsons, "getting Naked at Albertsons is so much cheaper than getting Naked at Broulims".  Judging by the looks we got, Rexburg is not used to such talk in the grocery store.

Finally, we quit talking about it and got a full case of Naked at Sam's Club.  They gave us a much bigger discount for getting Naked there instead of getting Naked at Broulims or Albertsons.  Our entire family got to enjoy Naked.  However, we prefer our own version of Naked over the cost of getting Naked in the stores.