Our Spring break happened to fall during the weekend of Brielle's State Gymnastics competition in Pocatello, Idaho. Having lived there for one year, I had come to consider it the "Armpit of Idaho". Maybe this is due to the amount of stress I endured while living there in so short a time frame. We moved 5 times, started two businesses, bought our first house, remodeled it, lived in the wreckage of it, had a baby, I worked with incredibly troublesome teenagers in the Special Ed department of the high school, Todd was going to school, it was often very hard to make ends meet. Still, we were happy. But the dry and the wind and blah of the land, and loneliness for friends just itched me bad.
STILL, we were determined to find joy in the journey. This trip would fall not only over Spring Break, but Lainey and Todd's birthdays and our 12th nniversary as well.
Lainey's Birthday Dinner.
A short hike on a blustery day.
We visited my least favorite attraction on the planet. When we asked some friends of ours from Pocatello what there was to do for fun that time of year there, they suggested Don Aslett's new "Museum of Clean". I admit to being a little suspicious of it initially, but we took their word for it. It was a multi-million dollar museum so it had to be worth our time, right? I guess we were being pranked! I'm sorry if I offend anyone reading, but it was literally filled with Don Aslett's collection of brooms, vacuums, washing machines, buckets and mops, and all things clean from the ages of history, along with their respective description of time periods and pertinent information. He literally has millions of dollars worth of antique cleaning tools and machines. Pretty much every cleaning thing ever invented in every model or brand. It was all about the history of cleaning.... just kill me now. I mean, I like science and history, a lot actually. But this was just not interesting to me beyond ten minutes and certainly not exciting enough to children. We left the 30 minute tour early. Sorry tour guide. This was just not our thing. Yellowstone would be, but it was closed- still pre-season. We were stuck in the arm pit of Idaho at a clean museum!!!!!
Two of every kind of stuffed animal on this ark...
A tin man made of wash pales and cleaning tools.
A section about chimney sweeping.
Eating Todd's birthday dinner at Red Lobster.
The waitress let the kids pet a lobster.
At Brielle's gymnastics competition.
Brielle did great as this was her first year of gymnastics. She was on an Exel team which is much less technical or advanced for girls at their age than the competitive "levels" of gymnastics. Her best event was the bar.
A terrible wind storm had picked up blowing dust everywhere and we'd exhausted all our ideas for things to do indoors. We went to a movie. We shopped the small local mall and found a Deseret Book store there where we purchased a beautiful puzzle to work on in the motorhome and a Lego set of the Salt Lake City temple which Ashton build. No pic of that, though.
But alas, our small farm town seemed to sound more fun than Pocatello. So we headed home as soon as Brielle's gymnastics competition was over and we enjoyed the rest of our Spring Break locally.
Working out.
Play dates with cousins.
Practicing for Spring soccer season.
The kids went to "Picasso at the Park", a little local art camp.
And using our gift cards from Christmas at the Boise mall. We held off a while on that so things would be back in stock at the stores. Here's Lainey having used her gift card to Build-A-Bear.
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