Idaho Vacation Day 2

 Our first full day of visiting was full of fun chatter and kids playing happily

A little walk with the littlest crew:

 This way! says Blaizen. He was very confident of his direction :)

 Beautiful trees

 There were hours and hours of rocket building, tonka truck playing and picture taking...

 Joshua was eager to try the zip-line, until he got up high

 Then he wasn't so sure

 But finally decided it was fun after all

 and kept coming back for more :)

Idaho Vacation, Day 1

Near the beginning of this month we had the great fun of being able to visit some dear friends in Idaho. Thank you so much, Loves, for having us!

We left our house about 2:30 am hoping to get several hours in without having to stop. The boys took a little while to settle back to sleep, but they did eventually and we had a very quick-seeming few hours of travel with Nate listening to an audiobook and me dozing off and on and listening to my book when I couldn't sleep.

The boys woke up after we had skirted Portland and got onto the highway along the Columbia River gorge. We stopped at a rest area next to a reservoir for a bit of play time

 There were these fun little "forts" that the boys had a great time checking out

 And running, lots of running...

 Sweetness: Joshua holding Blaizen's hand so he could fix his shoe 

 The two biggest boys having a chat

 ♥♥♥

 We enjoyed the scenery along the gorge as much as the first time we went this way. There are quite interesting and amazing rock formations and waterfalls, and barges and trains and dams and bridges, and trees and islands...

We stopped in Kennewick Washington for lunch and a long play. Nate persevered in driving around the town until we found this nice park with a big playground. 

 When we sat down for lunch we attracted a large number of these seagulls:

 The noise they made was like a laugh "ha ha ha ha". It was so funny! I loved the bright red of the inside of their mouths against the light grey speckles. They would bend their heads down between their legs and then up over their backs, laughing all the while. Brannon observed that is seemed to be an aggressive behavior since usually a fight would break out following it, or another bird would run away.

 Happy boys :)

 We got to watch a couple of squirrels enjoying this giant walnut tree. It was a bit dangerous to stand underneath, I was worried about someone getting beaned by a walnut. This squirrel sat and worked away at the shell of this walnut for a good half an hour:

 Fierce lion!

 This pic of Brannon cracks me up! Fake mad face :) looks pretty convincing 

 There's that smile I love so much ♥

We played there for about and hour and a half then went to a frozen yogurt place. By the time we got to Coeur d'Alene we were So tired of driving/riding. We just wanted to get to our destination so we didn't make any more stops. The last hour of our trip was a little loud and crazy! We arrived in time for dinner as we were hoping. So happy to see good friends and let the week of playing commence! 

Celtic Highland Games

Yesterday we had the immense treat of driving up to the Celtic games put on each summer by the Douglas County Scottish Society http://users.rosenet.net/dcscots/

First off we watched some fellows (and a couple gals) throwing heavy weights around

 The younger boys got bored with that pretty quick and started some wrestling

 Brannon climbing a tree between contestants

 We missed the adult edged weapons competition and I didn't get any pics of the youth competing. Brannon was inspired to start practicing archery again after watching them. There was shooting, throwing knives and axes, cutting a rope with a sword and whacking at a wooden knight holding a shield. Nate is hoping he and Brannon can practice some this year and enter the competition next year.

Joshua was really fascinated with the blacksmith booth. I liked the iron roses and a walking stick with an iron wolf head on top. There was also neat octopus and some really amazingly detailed oak leaves. Joshua of course liked the knives and swords.

 After eating lunch we stopped at a booth where a very kind gentleman let the boys try on helmets and armor he had made. He works for days and weeks on each piece.

Blaizen enjoying the helmet

 Joshua having a turn

That is one excited smile! Very cool kid-sized breastplate too

 Apparently this style of helmet which is believed to be Spanish by most folks was used all over Europe and in Britain as well

 Finally got to hold the big sword (a not sharpened one!) with a grownup "helping". He kept saying "Can I hold it now?" even though it was in his hands. He wanted full control :)

 Sweet little face

 Joshua gets to try on the breastplate too

 And the jousting helmet which goes on top of the other

 Are you in there?

 All very exciting...

 Especially the sword!

We found some shade to lay our picnic blanket out in and lounged about cooling off and having story time, with some nice music in the background

 And colorful folks all around

Then a band Nate really wanted to see came on the large stage and so we shifted hang out spots. This band was called Brothers and was a mix of Celtic and 'tribal'.

Didgeridoos! Of course Nate couldn't wait to watch them :)

 Tartan finery 

 I forgot to wear my McIntyre tartan scarf, but it was so hot I think it would have been uncomfortable however I wore it. I wore my McIntyre crest necklace though, so I had Some clan pride going on at least :) 

Checking out fun clan crest stuff

 Cooling off in the misters 

 Some ladies were enjoying the music by dancing 

 Sword defense demonstration

 Followed by a sword fight

 The boys enjoyed this one a lot :) 

 I really wanted to try one of these, but didn't want to eat the wheat...

All in all it was a fun day, although coming at the end of a busy week everybody was bit fried and we ended up leaving earlier than planned. Maybe next year we will remember to plan ahead. We are thinking of camping next to the park and staying the weekend next time, especially if Brannon is doing the youth competition.