Thursday, August 26, 2010

And here we have Idaho...

Growing up in Burley, Idaho, county fair time was always my favorite time of year. We spent the summer working on 4-H projects and then entered them into the fair. This year our Cassia County Fair and Rodeo celebrated its 100th anniversary so it was only fitting that one of its biggest fans--ME--could be there to commemorate the occasion. So last week we loaded up the car and headed off on our 12 hour drive to Idaho.

My sisters and most of their kiddos came to Mom and Dad's to join in the festivities. They actually got there two days ahead of us so the kids could enter some cooking and crafts into the open class judging (They got ribbons and money for their efforts and it was fun finding out how well they had done.) We were jam-packed into the house and got lots of family togetherness.

The fair's official opening is kicked off with a parade. Our parade is full of horses, drill teams, floats, old cars and buggies, tractors, candy-throwers, rodeo royalty and long pauses. Seeing the Burley Bobcat Marching Band brought back lots of memories of my high school days. We got great curb-side seats in the shade.

My 87-year-old Grandma with Joshua, my son.All of us at the parade--minus 3 husbands and 5 kids who either: had to work, had mandatory band practice, hadn't arrived yet, or are off serving missions! Missed you.

One afternoon while the "Older Girls" went to a fantastic quilt shop--yes, I wanted to buy everything in sight it was such a sweet store--Jeff and the younger kids went swimming at the new Rupert Pool. Jeff and Jessica found Dad's business on the sponsor wall.
Good times in the pool!

No fair is complete unless you go to a rodeo! It was Christina's first rodeo experience--she thought the cowboys were hot! The best part of the night was the antics of the first bull in the bull riding competition. After bucking off his rider, the crazy thing refused to leave the arena and would jump straight up in the air and flop down on his back. We were all laughing so hard and even the rodeo announcer was cracking up and said he'd never seen anything like it before.
Christina hanging out at the rodeo with her Aunt Ralene, Jessica, and Uncle Jeff.Me and my Noah!Rheid made it in time for the rodeo.

But my favorite part of the trip turned out to be not part of the fair at all. My mom, my sisters, and I went to the Twin Falls Temple to do some family names. We just missed going through a session so we did an initiatory group before the rest of the family came to do baptisms. The temple was so beautiful! As a family we were able to do almost 50 family names and several hundred temple names. It was an amazing afternoon and no words can adequately express how I felt being there with my family. I am grateful to know that our family can be together forever!Outside the doors of the Twin Falls LDS Temple. My mom and twin sister, Terri, in the backseat on our way to Twin Falls.My older sister, Ralene, driving and me soaking up all the air conditioning in the front seat.

And of course, no good day can't be made better with great food--and lots of it. We went to Gerties Brick Oven Cookery and stuffed ourselves senseless with all-you-can-eat pizza. The dessert pizzas were especially delicious. My amazing parents at the pizzeria.Christina feeds the cousin.
Of course not all the good food was to be found in Twin Falls, Jessica whipped up a batch of delicious pineapple upside-down cupcakes.Jessica's cupcakes were almost too pretty to eat--but I managed to consume three of them. They were worth the extra insulin!

After five fun days in Idaho it was time to head home. We stopped over at Rheid's parents in Utah on Saturday night so we could celebrate his dad's 79th birthday on Sunday. His mom's um...29th birthday was the next day so we got to celebrate that too! Most of his family was able to come up to Heber City for a Sunday brunch before we had to leave. It was so good to see everyone again. I should have taken more pictures there but luckily I did remember to take one of the birthday boy.WHAT A GREAT TRIP!

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