The Insanity Continues

We arrived in the beautiful city of Idaho Falls on Wednesday and my bloggy friend, Patty, who actually LIVES here, sent us a list of activities. It's kind of fun looking around at each and every face we see to try and spot someone we know from our list of followers. Sadly, we didn't see her at any of our stops. We are now finishing up our third day of this insanity and I feel like a babbling idiot. The kids are all sacked out on the beds watching Disney channel except for Baby Doll. She has dumped her entire diaper bag on the floor and has been taking a bite out of everything. She loved the Harry Potter Uno cards until I took them away from her. Sirius Black will never be the same...

So we spent most of yesterday hanging out in Rexburg at my sweetie's aunt and uncle's house. They were so kind and patient with the kids. His uncle even took them on a tour of his toy workshop and gave them each a tiny wooden car when they were finished! Sport was absolutely beside himself! He even used five bucks from his birthday money and bought five more.

When we were about a mile outside of town, he suddenly realized that he had left one of his precious cars back at the house. Being the mean and ornery mom that I am, I refused to return and we headed to the Mesa Waterfall. Waterfalls are beautiful, but I prefer to look at them from the safety of a vehicle behind sturdy railings that would repel even the stupidest driver. Alas, my sweetie had other ideas. But after several fervent prayers and lots of bug bites later, we all made it back to the van.

As we headed back toward Rexburg, I repented of my nastiness and called about the missing car. After making the stop, we arrived late at the hotel. The big kids all went swimming and I think they would have stayed all night if the old guys hadn't shown up in their Speedos and scared them away. After another lousy night's sleep, we checked out of the hotel and headed toward Boise.

My sweetie had a couple of stops in mind including the Atomic Reactor Museum. The kids mostly thought he was crazy after we drove halfway across the desert into nothingness, but we all enjoyed the self-guided tour and the interactive exhibits. We only lost Burrito and Sport for a few minutes when they hung out a little too long in the bathroom. I can't tell you how many times my sweetie has announced that "after this we are driving straight home"! Then we all climbed back in the van and drove to the Craters of the Moon National monument. The lava fields were so cool! They don't have anything like that in Utah!

The kids all earned their Junior Ranger pins, but the most exciting thing was the ancient cars in the parking lot. Apparently, there were five amazing cars participating in a motor tour...if Sport was excited yesterday, he was ready to explode today!

My sweetie was excited to climb to the top of the volcano with Crafty and the Dog Walker, so I stayed in the parking lot with all the little kids. Unfortunately, we didn't know the rule about having to bring a flashlight to explore the caves. Princess actually brought one, but the batteries were mostly dead and the last thing we needed was to get stuck in the dark with all these little ones. They are hard enough to keep track of when we can see them! We finally left the craters and headed to Twin Falls.

We had dinner at IHOP and then nearly got lost trying to find the freeway. Scout started whining about food 1/2 an hour later. For some reason she had short-term memory loss and thought we hadn't eaten supper. She even convinced a couple of the boys that she was right. An hour's worth of agony later, and we were finally in Boise. It was 10:30 when we checked into the hotel and the only rooms that were left were smoking rooms. My sweetie was not happy! When I asked for a crib, they said they would try to find one. We finally dragged all the grumpy tired kids to the rooms without losing one. Although at this point there were a few I wouldn't have minded leaving home...

Fifteen minutes later, the Dog Walker knocked on my door. He had found a crib on the elevator and he knew I wanted one. When the manager showed up ten minutes after that with another crib, I laughed and told him my son had already found one. He said, "That's what happened to it! I was hoping it hadn't disappeared into the parking lot." I guess he had put one in the elevator for us and then thought maybe he was losing his mind when it disappeared. That made me feel better...at least I'm not the only one losing my mind...