UEA Weekend

One more post while I'm on a roll. I will be done by 1 am.  Up until about 30 minutes ago I was working on an annotated bibliography of 50 sources (just punch me in the face for signing myself up for that), so this is way better.  Who needs sleep anyway?  Oh wait I do, and I will probably be yawning all day tomorrow.

After Luke's hunting adventure and then Brian's wedding on Thursday we hit the road Friday for a little trip to City of Rocks.  If you've never heard of it you're not alone.  It's actually a huge destination for rock climbers, and we just went there for a little hiking and outdoors fun.  It is truly in the middle of nowhere Idaho.  We had a great time though.  It's not the most beautiful place I've been to, but it is pretty and the big rocks that stick up out of nowhere are very unique--definitely worth seeing.

This was our view of Ian most of the trip.  Keeping track of that kid is a full-time job.



We rented a yurt which was awesome.  The kids loved it, and we thought it was pretty sweet too.  They have never stayed in one, so it was quite the new adventure for them.  Don't think we weren't roughing it though.  We had no running water (apparently that gets turned off Sep. 30), and we brought and cooked all our own food in the great outdoors.  It was no big deal though.  We had tons of food, plenty of water for cooking and washing hands, and we powered through the wipeys and hand sanitizer.

Good times around the campfire.  It was chilly but not cold--perfect weather actually.

I think Ian likes smores.

Breakfast in footie PJs.  That's the life.

Doing some exploring at City of Rocks.  We couldn't get more than about 2 steps before Luke wanted to stop and climb something.  All was going well until Seth had a run in with a prickly pear.  Not good.  There were at least 300 stickers in his hand.  Luke was quite concerned about him and after some serious tweezing he was good as new.

This was taken at the general store in Almo which is apparently the oldest one in Idaho.  We made several runs there for ice.  They have some cool old stuff in there like that scale and an old cash register.  The boys wanted gum balls which are only for display (I guess they've been there since like 1900 too) but luckily they had more since we promised them some.

Here's one last shot at the yurt.  It was a really nice setting with lots of trees and shrubs for boys to pee in and shoot air soft guns.  They also provided some privacy from our super weird neighbors who came over a lot and stayed a really long time for people we don't even know.  The kids had lots of fun "attacking" trees, riding bikes, and just being boys.

I guess Ian makes that face a lot.  He also kept us up a lot that first night.  The next one was much better--Ian woke up once and Seth did too when he rolled of his bed in his sleeping bag.  That's why he had a bottom bunk.

Before we left camp Luke took pictures of everything including this self-portrait and one of Jer and I.  We were all in need of a shower at that point.

Before we left we hit Castle Rock State Park for a little more hiking and a snack break before we headed home.

The kids were great and it was a really fun trip with lots of good food and great times together.