road trip + air trip

 We were long overdue for a trip to Idaho, so we took advantage of the cheap airfare on Allegiant and made our way up north.  It turned into quite an adventure, though, because we flew to Idaho by way of Arizona and there was a lot for us to accomplish in a few weeks.  

Our first stop was our old house in AZ.  Our tenants moved out at the start of January, and we had new ones moving in a few days later, so we took advantage of my timing and stopped by to clean and fix a few things.  It was a little strange to be back in our old house, but it felt really familiar.  Graham wasn't too sure about the house, because he kept asking where our chairs were.  He often talks about our old house and requests that we go there.  

But after a few days there, and a terribly failed trip to Cafe Rio, we headed to Mesa and flew to Idaho.  (Long story short--A Cafe Rio opened near our house after we moved.  I wanted to go there, so we did, and it turned out bad.  I realized the kids food was missing only after I had everyone loaded back up, and they forgot my salad dressing.  Super failure.)

We were glad to get to Idaho.  Graham, especially.  The day after we got there, he begged all morning to dress up like a snow man and play in the snow.  My parents were at work for the morning, so we had to wait for Papa to get home to find the boots and pants for Graham.  When my dad got home, Graham was thrilled.  They went outside and built a snowman.

At one point, Graham looked out the back window, saw the pine tree in my parents' yard, and exclaimed, "It's amazing! There's a Christmas tree in the yard!"

Later in the week, it had started to warm up in Idaho Falls, so we went closer to the mountains to have a snow day.  My dad took us to Pine Basin, the school district's summer camp where we were able to sled down the hill.  We also took a picnic and hot chocolate to have in the cabin.  

The boys loved the snow and couldn't get enough of sledding down the hill.  Mason was a little unsure, but was always upset when the sled came to a stop at the bottom of the hill.

Mason refused to wear his gloves.  I had packed a few pairs of extra socks for the boys, and he wore those on his hands, instead.  Silly kid.

Someone had built a snow fort and it was the coolest thing, according to Graham.

Grandma showed Graham how to make snow angels.  Graham's angels were the cutest.

We also had some good cousin time in both Idaho Falls and Tucson.

After flying back to Mesa from Idaho Falls, we stopped by the new Gilbert temple.  It was the open house, and I really wanted to take the boys inside.  The bad thing was that we were there on the holiday, and everyone else in the state of AZ was there.  The standby line (because I didn't make a reservation...I didn't think that far in advance) was super long and the boys weren't going to make it.  It was going to take us like 3 hours just to get through.  Maybe we'll see it again another day.

We had a really nice trip and got to see lots of people.  We're glad to be home, though.  These boys are great travelers, by the way.  They did awesome.