Lake Cleveland

While in Idaho we always have to make sure we get to the mountains for Scott.  He loves to build a fire and go on hikes.  This year we made our plan to go up Friday night after he had finished working.  (Love that he can work from anywhere so he is able to come to Idaho for a few weeks each summer!)  It is quite an ordeal to get the picnic ready for all of us.  We spent a couple hours getting table cloths, food, coolers, water and fire starters packed and loaded in the car then we were off.  On the way up the mountain we saw some ominous clouds looming and as soon as we found a table and firepit the thunder started.  We got our fire started, hot dogs and smore's roasted and eaten and were packed up in the car to leave within 45 minutes.  The rain started coming down as the last of our outing was packed back in the car.  It was the shortest trip we have made to the mountains but it was still fun.  We were lucky to be able to make it into Lake Cleveland this year.  It is generally still snowed in while we are here.  Crazy for July right?!  It was absolutely beautiful.  We made another trip back up the following Wed and had more time to play and hike.  Tate was in heaven with throwing things on the fire (a boy after his daddy's heart) and Cole was in heaven running me around.

 Scott had himself, Tate and Cole ready to get in the lake.  Too bad the rain changed that plan.

The wildflowers were beautiful.  Cole had so much fun playing with them.

 Smore's!

 The rain created a beautiful double rainbow.

 Our second trip up had more hiking.

 Scott took turns taking Tate, Sarah and Andrew all out on the raft.

Cows!

We have been loving our time in Idaho.  The weather is great (even though I would love it to just always be 70) and the boys have loved being outside.  One of Tate's favorite parts of coming to Idaho is being able to go and see the cows.  On our first Sunday he happened to have my parent's neighbor as his Primary teacher.  She remembered Tate and his love of cows and told him she was the one with all the cows he always came to see.  He looked at her and asked if he could come see them again which she answered of course.  He then paused and asked if he could feed them.  She was very kind and said yes.  When we showed up the next day at the dairy she was ready for us with buckets of feed.  Tate had the best time putting food in for the cows to eat.  He was also able to pet 3 day old calves.  I informed them that in another 10 years they would have some good summer help!

Since we had a guided tour this year we had the opportunity to take the kids into the barn where they milked the cows.  They all thought that was pretty cool.