Nice weather on Memorial Day!

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone already. Can't believe it's already almost June. We are certainly enjoying warm days. A park close by recently opened a little water park for kids (for free) and it's been fun watching them. That would have been a child's dream to be so close to one of those.

We decided to take a visit to Pocatello on Saturday to visit my cousins Carrie, Zach, and their family. It was fun spending time with them, having hotdogs/hamburgers and playing a few games. I actually played Settlers of Cataan! Carrie's oldest, Makayla, had very loose front teeth that she refused to pull out. We kept trying to coax her to do it, and got one of them out, but that ended up being such an experience that she refused to let the other one come out. (it got really late though... 1:30 so we were all tired) It is definitely only a matter of time before that dangly front tooth is out! We had a great time with them and hope to see each other more often as we're only an hour apart. (we grew up 6 hours apart)

Sunday = it rained. We invited our next door neighbors over for dinner though.

On Monday, Alex and I headed down to Idaho Falls to meet up with my dad, and our Grandma and Grandpa Olsen. My grandparents are aging so it was nice to see and spend time with them. Alex and I went to Target to pick up a few things where we randomly bumped into Carrie & Zach! What a surprise! Carrie was telling me that they had a picnic lunch over by the Snake River.
I have wanted to take Alex there and walk around the river ever since we moved up here, but everytime we think about it, it's way too cold. So, after Target, we headed over there and walked the 4 mile trail around the river. Absolulty scenic walk. Geese and ducks were everywhere, then the beautiful falls, beach sand, temple view, fishing, and then swimming. It was such a beautiful day! And of course, we forgot our camera!

Well, back to school/work. But it was a fun weekend. Happy summer! We're going to go on another walk now!

Thunder Over Louisville

We got up and went to the "Great Lawn" around 10:30 a.m.  It was already getting a bit crowded, but Jeff was nice enough to go a few hours ahead of time and stake out our groups area with ropes and tarps.  It was a huge event.  At times we wandered the venues, getting the standard carni junk food.  It obviously got even more crowded as the day went on.  By about 7 p.m. the venues were so crammed full of people that people were walking shoulder to shoulder in every single direction.

The air show was awesome.  The last air show I remember was one with some of my cousins and my Grampa, and I don't remember it very well.  This one was amazing.  They had some really cool formation group planes doing a bunch of stunts making it look like they were going to crash into eachother.  The 2nd half of the air show was pretty much a bunch of show-boating pilots from the aired forced strutting their stuff.  They had F-14's, F-16's, A-10's, F-22's etc.  They even flew in some Apache and Chinook Helicopters doing some crazy stuff!

Then came the moment that Cindy and I flew out to Kentucky for.  It was the BIGGESGT FIREWORKS SHOW IN NORTH AMERICA.  (I've been to the 4th of July fireworks in Washington DC ... this was bigger.)  It went for about 30 minutes, and at times you could feel the ground shaking with each explosion.  It literally rocked!

After about 2 hours of sitting in next to dead traffic, we finally got home in time to sleep for almost 4 hours before we got up and flew home to Salt Lake, then drove back up to Rexburg. 

It was definitely the experience of a lifetime.  You just can't describe how cool it really is, it's just something you have to see for yourself.

Our Kentucky Trip (pt.2)

After our trip from Nauvoo, Craig and Danielle flew into town as well, so we set out to see the sights of the Louisville area.

We toured the Louisville slugger factory, where they make all the bats.  They showed us these cool machines where they take the best blocks of wood and shave them down to all sorts of different kinds of bats.  Who knew it was such a process?  They also have very specific computerized machines there that take the exact specifications from baseball players and make them customized for each one.  

They also had a neat museum of how bats have come to be what they are today in the baseball world, as well as some fun bat trivia.  Matthew had a great time looking at all the cool stuff and saying "bat" about 1,437 times in one afternoon.

The next day we drove to a state park called "My Old Kentucky Home" which is apparently what the name of the State Song is, which song is about this really really old house.

  It was a neat park, but the best part was just being able to walk through some nice gardens with the kids and just enjoy the beautiful afternoon.

Next stop for the day was Lincoln's birthplace.  The funny thing was that the ranger in the visitor's center told us that even though the log cabin was moved and rebuilt, it was the logs from the original cabin itself.  Later on, when actually viewing the cabin, the ranger there told us the opposite, that it was a replica of the original.  I don't know, but it was still cool to see this piece of American history.

We ended the day by driving down one of the most picturesque drives I've ever seen.  Rolling grassy hills with trees dotting the landscape.  I wish I took a picture to show, but I didn't, so I just got this one off of the internet, but it gives you an idea.

The drive was on the way to some authentic southern cookin at a nice restaurant called Claudia Sanders.

Alright, class is about to start, so I'll have to save "Thunder Over Louisville" for the next post.