Twilight tour

On Monday Kristin called and asked if I wanted to go with her and Julie & Kayla and her friend Cherrie(sp?) to see some of the places they used to film the movie Twilight. I read all of the books and saw the movie (which was a little disappointing, but not as bad as I thought it would be thanks to my low expectations). It was pretty cool.

This is "The Cullen's House"

And this is "Bella's House"
People actually live in them, so we could only see the outside. We also went to St. Helens where they filmed the scenes that take place in Port Angeles. We saw the bookstore which was actually a lawyers office and the nearby alley, the dress store that was actually a hair salon and the restaurant that was actually a house (with a restaurant across the street) and the theatre which really was a theatre.
Thanks, Kris and Juls. I had a blast.

Craters of the Moon

On Saturday, the 26th we packed up the kids and drove to Craters of the Moon, an hour from Idaho Falls in Arco, Idaho. The AC in my car had stopped working a couple of days before that so it was a long hot drive. Even though it was pretty hot that day, there was a nice cool wind so it was quite perfect. We were all glad to get out of the car.



This was our first stop in the park. It was just a flat loop but we learned about the two different types of lava, aa (pronounced 'ah-ah') and Pahoyhoy (pronounced 'paHO-ehHO-eh').





We had to get Alysha in the picture too, but Josi was ready to go, so she was already headed down the trail.







It has it's own sort of beauty. It is wierd to think it has taken 2000 years for just this sparse growth.







Here you can see Josi heading up the group. She and Kleyn practically ran down the trail. Even Hyrum wanted to do his own walking. It was pretty easy here, with the paved trail. I think they used asphalt to try and make it blend in some. The trail to the caves wasn't so easy. A lady in front of me tripped an twisted her ankle and skinned her knee. Fortunately, I was prepared and had a little first aid kit, with antibiotic cream, Hello Kitty bandaids and alcohol wipes. That didn't help her ankle much.

Here is Josi way in the front again, followed by Kleyn and then Kaelynn with Kaleb in the pack, and then Alysha. I was lagging behind to get the photo.

Here we are taking a break inside one of Indian Tunnel. Hyrum didn't want to sit still, even for a picture. He was a little scared of the sharp rocks. It was a little treacherous, but Josi and Kleyn were little monkeys and didn't want help. We made it out with only a couple of scrapes. Even Kaelynn and Kaleb got out unscathed with that baby pack.

We left after only two stops and we only explored the first two caves, Dewdrop Cave and Indian Tunnel. The kids were quite ready to be done so we left the last two caves, Boy Scout Cave and Beauty Cave, and the Devils Orchard Nature trail for another trip. Hyrum fell right to sleep and Josi finished her water.

Moving to Arizona

This is a little old, but I still wanted to post it.

This is from our drive down to Arizona from Utah in April. At this point Hyrum had thrown up twice and I was starting to think that he might be getting car sick. So, we started taking frequent rest stops. It didn't help for long though, he threw up 3 more times. By the last hour of the trip he was screaming and sleeping off and on. I felt so bad for the little guy, but I knew there wasn't much I could do for him on the side of the road. Both of the kids were glad to get out of the car for a little while. Hyrum wanted to take all of the little rocks with him.