STAYCATION

Dylan wearing the "Davey Crockett" cap.

Taylor's turn

Isn't he so cute?

So with the first day of school racing towards us, and no plans for any sort of vacation in sight.... I decided to plan a 'Staycation' for my kiddos. A staycation is a vacation except you don't go anywhere, you just stay. I worked Tuesday and Wednesday night. So with Thursday and Friday being the last two consecutive days that I had open til school started, I decided to go for it. We started with the splash park.

Jared (in the foreground) and Taylor concentrating on the waters at hand

Dylan, Taylor & Jared all coming down at the same time.

They all played at the splash park til they froze. Then they got dressed and went next door to the horsey, merry-go-round. (and rode two times as Dylan would explain.)

Go Dylan Go!!!
Each horse has a engraved logo on the back of the saddle saying the name of the horse and who took care of it. Sharon Orme is a lady in our ward who painted the horse that Taylor rode.
What innocent eyes.
Taylor on the horse done by Sharon Orme.

After the horsey rides, we got cotton candy. It was their first taste. Taylor loved it. Dylan almost threw up, I guess he didn't like the texture.


After that we went to McDonalds for lunch and they played there. We took Dylan to speech then headed to I.F. and started out back to school shopping. They wanted McDonalds for dinner so we did that, then tried to each on the greenbelt next to the river. That didn't work (thanks to the tornado-like winds) so we just went to our hotel. We checked into the Shilo Inn where we finished dinner. The kids jumped back and forth from bed to bed and played tag for awhile. We watched some TV, (which we don't have at home) then we watched movies til we fell asleep.

When we woke up in the morning we went downstairs for breakfast then went back to our room and watched cartoons til check out time. As we headed back to resume our back to school shopping, we drove past an awesome turn about and stopped to take some pictures.

At Taylor's Crossing

Speaking of Taylor's (She wouldn't let me take a picture of her unless it was with my sunglasses)

My three peeps...

Me and Taylor

Dylan holdin' on!!!

Jared just making me happy

I think we got all of our back to school shopping done, we played at center court in the mall (which Dylan calls broccoli) had Preztlemaker (YUM) for a snack and Burger King for dinner on our way home. When we got home, we put our P.J's on, popped some popcorn, got some treats and wrapped up our staycation with an outing to the drive-in movie theatre. We watched G-Force (a Disney movie with gerbils or hamsters being secret agents) and Aliens in the Attic (a teeny-bopper show having to do with aliens).

Dylan got the whole back seat to himself. Good thing too, he fell asleep half way thru the first movie.

Jared hanging out the window....crazy dude!!!

Me (no makeup) & Taylor (I guess the flash was a bit too bright)

Jeff and Jared (the only part of our staycation Jeff came for)

It was my brothers (Daniel) reception in Boise at this same time. I decided as opposed to driving 5 hours one way by myself with three kids, that I would just have fun with them here at home instead. I didn't have the fiances or emotional energy to do a trip to Boise. I've had some say that I'm such a great mom for doing this. I really don't agree with that. I hope that I've made great memories with my kids that will help make up for all the times I'm gone to work or gone for school. I hope they will remember that their mom tried to spend time with them and I love them very so much. I feel as though I am so lacking in so many areas, that my kids deserve so much more. I hope when they look back, that they will remember good memories like our little staycation......