Family Vacation 2008

We decided we better do something before the summer officially comes to an end. So, we figured we'd head on up to Boise and play up there for a few days. We went up on Friday night so that we could get an early start on Saturday morning.
We headed off to the Boise Zoo first thing Saturday morning. This was Mackenzee's first time going to a zoo, so we thought it would be fun for her to see the animals.


Our favorite part was the penguins. There were so many of them in the tank, and they were being so silly swimming around. Mackenzee thought they were a hoot, too. Landon's favorite part was the Komodo Dragon. It was HUGE!
After that we met my parents up in Horshoe Bend for a Wild West Shootout train ride. The train ride was about 2 1/2 hours and traveled along the river. It was gorgeous scenery. The actors were a couple of "bad cowboys" as Mackenzee called them, a Sheriff and his deputy.
The bad cowboys were arrested for trying to rob a bank, and they were on their way up to the jail. In the process, the two of them managed to get the deputy's gun. So, they were able to tie up the law enforcer's and get their handcuffs off. They then "robbed" the train {We were given fake money at the beginning}. The sheriff and deputy managed to break free and there was a shoot out off the side of the train. {We stopped at that point, and that's when they hopped off the train.}
Landon and Mackenzee got to interact with the actors as the whole thing progressed. The older cowboy asked Mackenzee in the middle of his tirade if she thought he was mean. She was so shocked she could only stare at him. Landon refused to give his money up to the bad cowboys when we were robbed and so the older one took his baseball cap instead. :0) Landon ended up deciding the money wasn't worth it, so he traded the money for his cap.
It was such a fun train ride. The kids had a good time, and it was a relaxing ride. It was really nice to sit and chat with my mom too. We were so glad they came along for the ride. It made it more fun that way. :0)We were pretty pooped after all of that, so we had a fairly quiet evening at the hotel. The kids loved the pool and as we were close to the theatre area we could walk to Pronto Pups and get corn dogs and their amazing Strawberry lemonade for dinner. So good! :0) {Never thought I'd say that about a corn dog!}

Sunday we went to Roaring Springs and took to the water slides. I don't have the pictures of this adventure yet as I took a waterproof disposable camera and haven't gotten the film developed yet. We were there for a good 5 hours and were pretty water logged by the end of the afternoon. Landon went on every single ride there...some twice. I was truly impressed with him. He normally shies away from anything that might be scary, but he went for it. He even rode the BIG one that looks like a human skateboarding ramp. Though, when he was done he said he didn't want to do that one again. :0) Mackenzee just liked to sit on the beach of the wave pool and splash around. So, Jaysen and I took turns going down the slide with Landon while the other splashed with Kenzee. We had such a good time.
That night we went over to Jaysen's aunt and uncle's house for dinner. Dennis and Janie have dinner every Sunday for any of the Burnham kids that live around there. Similar to our weekly dinner at Jaysen's parents house. Janie went all out because we were coming and made tacos and fajitas for Jaysen. He was in heaven. I was so mad that I left my camera in the hotel, because she let Mackenzee help make homemade tortillas. Janie is from Mexico and so she cooks authentic Mexican food. So good! Mackenzee had so much fun with a little junior rolling pin making her tortillas nice and flat. After she was done with the first one she said, "Here grandma!" to Aunt Janie. Janie ate it up. It was really cute.
The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins too. Mackenzee took to Scott and Jamie's youngest daughter, Cameron, right off the bat. She called her "my friend" instead of using her real name. :0) Landon found a friend in Scott and Jamie's oldest daughter, Caitlyn. It was a really nice evening chatting with Jaysen's cousins and just hanging out.
Monday was Boondocks day. :0) This is an annual thing for us. We go every year to Boondocks just for Landon. He loves it there. This year, my sister Crystal came and brought her kids along. It made it so much more fun.

The bumper boats are always a favorite and Landon is mean with the water gun. I took Mackenzee in with me, and because neither of us were too keen on getting wet we travelled around the perimeter of the pool and watched the water fight going on around us. :0)
So that Crystal could go play with her kids in the water, I sat out the second ride and held little Paige. Crystal was way more fun loving on this ride than me. :0) She fought right along with everyone else and got pretty wet in the process. :0) The kids were all pretty wet at the end of the ride. But, they didn't mind. It was pretty hot outside, so it was nice to cool off.
Landon is big enough that he gets to drive a mini kart all by himself. I'm so glad we have many more years before he is really allowed to drive. :0) We were SERIOUSLY disappointed to find out that none of us could ride the real Go-Karts as they had just painted the railings around that area and so the ride was closed until the paint dried. Serious bummer!
All of the kids had fun play mini golf. It was so funny to hear Riley say, "What's this?" when he was handed the putter. Yeah....they don't golf in their family. :0) There were a few hole in one's and a couple of really close one's too. By the way...if any of you decided to go and play here...watch out for the shooting sprays of water on the 18th hole. Wish I had been given the heads up. I was sprayed right in the face. ;0)

Part of the package deal we bought included tokens for the arcade inside. I think this part was the kids favorite overall.

Kenzee and Riley really like the Spiderman car ride. They each took a couple of turns cruising with Spidey.
Apparently Mackenzee really LOVES Spiderman. We'll have to watch out for that one!
Yes, mommy help Kenzee play some of the games. We cheated. So sue me! :0)
Look at Landon's stack of tickets! They traded their winnings in for "fabulous" prizes at the prize counter. They had so much fun picking out what they wanted. :0)

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and had some pizza delivered for all of us to eat. And then, as promised, all of the kids got to take a dip in the pool.

Monday night, Jaysen's cousins wife {did you get all of that?} Jamee was kind enough to take me to Archivers to do a bit of scrapbook shopping. No kids even! I was in heaven! I got so much cute stuff too. I can't wait to use it! Afterwards, we went to Papa Joe's for dinner. Scott and Jamie's family, Kevin and Jamee's family, and us got a nice little corner room and had a good time eating HOT wings {I'm not kidding either} and other yummy food. It was really nice to hang out with everyone one last time.

Tuesday Jaysen went golfing with his cousins Scott, Kevin, and Nick. As we had to check out of the hotel that day, I took the kids to the mall for some power shopping. Can I just tell you that shopping for 5 hours with an 8 year old and a 2 year old is NOT fun. Actually, it could have been a lot worse. The kids were pretty good to me, and I couldn't blame them for being tired of walking around. I was getting tired. But, we were stuck until Jaysen finished his round of golf at 4:00.

I did get a couple of really cute pairs of shoes. :0) Oh! And the new 'Breaking Dawn'. Don't tell me the ending! I had to read my school work first so I'm just getting to it. It was hard to put it down last night. :0)

Anyway...we had such a good time. It was so fun hanging out with each of our families on the trip. Though I must say that it is definitely good to be home. :0)

Family Reunion continued....

As promised...here are a few more pictures of the Family Reunion.

Austin showing us all up as he scores three points for our team.

Jaysen tries to serve and score...but no such luck!

Greta tossing the frisbee

Riley, Crystal, Shelby, Kenzee, Talon, and myself hanging out on the dock.

Shelby and Paige at the Temple

Austin and Holly

Talon, Landon, Riley, and Jon

Riley, Savanna, Talon, Greta, and Genea

Robinson Family Reunion

As promised...here are a few more pics of the first annual Robinson Family Reunion...

I will add that I am needing to get the picture off of my mom's computer to fill in a few holes of what went on....so I will post more later, but here's the basic gist of it..

Friday was a fun, relaxing day at my mom's house. My brother was able to come join me and my little sister for an extra day before the "real" festivities began. He brought with him THE VORTEX. Yes, it is as magnificent as it sounds. It is a ginormous blow up water park. It would fill my entire backyard....and I'm not kidding. It has two water slides, a wading pool, and water guns built in. It rocks! Because we had this to entertain the children, the rest of us were able to sit around and do absolutely nothing. Which was fabulous!

That night we went to the drive in to see Wall-E. Please do not waste your money taking your children to see this movie! It wasn't horrible, but it was not something that would hold the attention of a small child very well. All the kids we took fell asleep. :0)

While we were at the drive-in my older sister arrived at my mom's house from Rexburg, though I went home....because it was almost midnight. A girl does need her beauty sleep! :0)

Saturday morning we all met at the new Stake Center for our tour of the new Twin Falls Temple.

Landon and Mackenzee were really excited that they were finally going to be able to go inside. Mackenzee's favorite part was the baptismal font...mostly because she wanted to get in. I think she thought she could have a quick swimming lesson while we were there. :0) Landon just really enjoyed being able to be with his cousins. He has missed them so much, as have I.

When the tour was over, we were all starving as it was lunch time. So, we headed over to my house for a quick bite. Shelby called it "Ash-way" as we built our own sub sandwiches like they do at Subway. :0)

We all then changed into our bathing suits and matching T-shirts and headed down to Bass Lake for the afternoon. The water was so nice on such a hot day. I was so glad that I had put Landon in swimming lessons because he was determined to swim out to the dock and hang out with the older kids out there. He did awesome, too. Mackenzee hung out on the beach and in the shallow part of the water; however, when my dad finally decided to get into the water and went out to the dock with the older kids, she made me take her out to the deep part so that she could play with him. So, strapped into her life jacket with a strangle hold on her mommy's neck, she wimpered while I swam out to the dock. She was so proud of herself when we made it out there and she was able to sit on the dock with the big kids. :0) I had a blast having swimming races with Jon, diving with Shelby, and hanging out with the wee ones in the shallow end. I convinced Stephanie to go down the slide by promising her that I would go down right after her. :0) The best part was dumping buckets of water on Jaysen's head. He totally deserved it! He was being "mean" to the little kids and splashing water on them. I had to protect them! :0)

While there we also played a mean game of sand volleyball. And, though my 6 year old nephew played better than I did...I totally kicked Jaysen's team's bottom! That's right! They lost! We won! Of course...not with too much help from me...but my dad and Jaysen went DOWN! That's what they get for playing against us four kids. We are unstoppable! :0)

As dinnertime rolled around, we realized we were all exhausted and hungry, so we went back to my mom's house to get ready for dinner. This is my dear Mackenzee on the way there....she was so tired from a full day of swimming. :0)The other kids had endless energy and played outside at my mom's house while we got everything ready. Before I allowed anyone to eat the messy bbq chicken, I made us pose for our family picture with our fabulous shirts on. They turned out so fun. Thanks for the idea Melanie! :0)

After dinner my dad built a fire in the fire pit and we let the kids roast marshmallows and make s'mores.

There is nothing like a good ooey gooey s'more. :0) Landon thoroughly enjoyed his, as did most of the kids, but Kenzee wanted nothing to do with the marshmallows after she roasted them over the fire. They were too messy for her. So, I had to eat them. Darn it! :0)

Once again....this was how the night ended...

It was such a long day for all of the kids. Honestly, it was a tiring day for the grown ups too! :0) So, we headed home to our nice soft beds and left the rest of the clan until the next day.

Sunday afternoon we met back up with the family at my mom's house for lunch. The kids were able to have a few last hours of play time together before everyone had to go home. It's always sad on the last day. The kids have so much fun together and are such good friends, that it makes it hard to say goodbye. We wish everyone lived close so we could smother each other in love all the time. But, that is not always possible, and absence does make the heart grow fonder right?

Thanks for the great idea of having this reunion, Melanie. It was so much fun! :0) Can't wait until next year!

Meet the Robinsons

Have you missed me? That would be because I was busy playing with my family these past few days.

Yes, we are the Robinsons. No, not really the ones from that Disney movie. But, it made for a great T-shirt. Here we all are {minus Jeremy and Nathaniel} on Saturday night wearing our fun shirts. This was our first annual Robinson family reunion. My parents {the "real" Robinsons}, with us four kids, our spouses, and all the grandkids. There are 25 of us total. Crazy huh?

As we were walking out my mom's front door to take this shot, Landon looked at me and said, "OH! I get it! The shirt says 'Meet the Robinsons' because WE'RE the Robinsons!"

I have such a smart kid. :0)

I'll post more later....I know you are on pins and needles!

My little Swimmers

I'm such a slacker mom. Now that summer is halfway over, I'm finally getting my kids into swimming lessons. My original plan was to have them take lessons the second week of summer break. Ha! Yeah...didn't quite make it did I?

Anyway...Last night was our first night of our two week course. I put Landon in a harder class this time. The stuff he did during Spring Break was too easy for him and I really want him to know how to swim. He's almost 9 for heaven's sake!

I asked him when lessons were over how it was..

"Mom..it was so hard! I had to swim all by myself with no help!"

Uh....yeah. That's kind of the point right? :0) He got to jump off the diving board too, which he loved. Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch much of his class to see his wicked awesome swimming skills because....

I had to don my own swimming suit for the mommy and me class I've got Kenzee in. I figured I'd better get a better start on lessons with my second child than I did with my first. You know...that whole "learning from past mistakes" thing. :0) Just not too thrilled to have to put on the swimming suit. Yuck!

She was scared at first and had a death grip on my neck, which was wierd because she was dying to jump in. I let her take it at her own pace and it wasn't long before she nudged off the first step onto the second one....and then stood up in the water. Of course, she was still tightly clinging to my hands, but still! Over the course of the next 40 minutes I was able to convince her to blow bubbles in the water {that took some coaxing}, and then to put her nose and then even her eyes in the water. She was so proud of herself. :0) She is sure she's a swimmer now and was so mad when class was over and we had to get out of the water.

So, if you are wondering...we'll be at the pool every night for the next two weeks....getting our swim "on". :0)

First Haircut

Yes, it's true.

Mackenzee had her first haircut on Saturday morning. She is 2 years and 9 months old.

I haven't wanted to do it. I wanted her hair to grow long and luxurious and beautiful. Unfortunately, she inherited some crazy hair genes. :0) Jaysen's mom tells me that Mackenzee gets it from her cousin, Rachel. I don't know if this is true or not, what I do know is that it is very thin, and likes to turn into a rats nest in the back. I use LOTS of detangling spray after bath time. Besides this, her hair has grown in weird. So, she had one section in the back that was longer than the sides. For those of you that remember, when she was a baby she was bald on top and had hair growing on the back. Kind of like her grandpa's {by that I talking both of them}. :0) Anyway...because of this she ended up with wierd multiple lengths. Jaysen has asked me several times when we were going to do it and I always told him the same thing. NEVER! But the other day as I was combing out the tangles, I knew it was time. Kenzee hates to have her hair brushed because of the tangles, so I asked her if she thought we should cut her hair.

She looked at me like I was crazy. I think she thought it was going to hurt. :0) I assured her there would be no pain and told her that I would take her to a salon to have it done all pretty. The mention of the sucker they give to kiddos getting their hair cut was brought up as a bribe as well. :0) She told me that she didn't want to go to a salon. She wanted me to do it.

She has seen me cut Landon's hair before. So, I assume this was why she thought I had hair cutting abilities. But, I thought...how hard could it be? Just a straight line across the back right?

Did I forget that my daughter doesn't like to hold still? Sigh. I don't know how stylists do it. I bet they curse every time some mom comes in with her kid for their first hair cut. Seriously! Landon cried through his. I bet that lady hated me! :0)

Anyway...Kenzee has a new 'do. I'm not sure if anyone can tell or not as it was just an inch off the bottom, but I think she looks adorable. I have now taken up the role of hair stylist amongst my many other job duties. :0) My mom did it for us when we were little too. I remember THE hair cutting scissors that were always kept in the bathroom. Maybe my little girl will have memories of ours. Yes, we've got our own special pair of black ones too. :0)

Out of the mouths of babes....

Lately Mackenzee has wanted me to read to her at bedtime. Not

children's bedtime stories...but whatever it is that I happen to be reading. My sister, Melanie, gave me the book 'The Five Love Languages' for my bday and I've just started reading it. In the very beginning of the book there is a conversation between a man who has been divorced three times and the author of this book. Now...picture me and Mackenzee snuggled in bed and me reading this aloud...

"...So my question is, What happens to love after the wedding? Is my experience common? Is that why we have so many divorces in our country? I can't believe that it happened to me three times. And those who don't divorce, do they learn to live the emptiness, or does love really stay alive in some marriages? If so, how?"

To which my Kenzee immediately piped up saying, "In the TEMPLE!"

We are so excited to be able to go through the new Twin Falls Temple this next week. To be able to go through with family will be such an amazing and wonderful experience. We get to go through twice before the dedication, as we will be going through with Jaysen's parents on August 9th as well. What an awesome opportunity for my children. We are so excited...especially Kenzee. She is sure that the golden statue on the top of the temple is her daddy. :0) It doesn't matter how many times I try to explain to her otherwise, she emphatically declares that it is her dad up there!