Back to school and Rexburg Idaho

 Scarlett started First Grade!  I worried all summer about her lunch.  She doesn't like food.  But we figured out some teeny tiny little things that she can eat and it's been a success!  She still eats her bowl of cereal every day after school (along with every morning and every night) but she has branched out enough to eat other tiny things at school.  Key: TINY.

I already posted this, but Raegan's Senior started out as a wheelin' good time!  And Sophie is a Sophomore, can't believe it.

 We always get to spend a weekend at the County Fair after school starts.  We love to see the animals and buy the fried food.

Sophie is turning cowgirl out here in the West.

Sophie's braces came off!  She can't even say "finally" because they were only on for about 18 months.  Luckeeeeeeee...

This wasn't the first day of school, but Sophie comes up like this and I say, "Whoa.  What's the special occasion?"  She always says, "What? This old thing?"  This girl goes GLAM.

 Romney moved to Rexburg!  We were excited and sad all at the same time.  Between 8 of us and all our luggage for the weekend in the car, (Raegan stayed home to take the ACT), PLUS all Romney's stuff for three months at school, we were PACKED. Like we seriously each had stuff under our feet and on our laps for the 6 hours to Rexburg. But this girl was excited!!  We couldn't get there fast enough.  We were excited to see Rexburg and to stay two nights in a hotel in Idaho Falls.  I had never been to either, and Brent has not been back for ages, it's been a long time since his days at Rick's College...

See how long it's been?  Brent went here when he was really little.

 The grounds were beautiful and the kids had a great time running and playing on the lush lawns.

Here's the life-size version of the mini building up above

 Brent wanted to show us the apartment he lived in when he went to college at Ricks.  We walked.  And walked some more. Where was that place?? Finally he called his old roommate, his brother Paul, and got directions.  This was it!

Academy Apartments, Brent's old place.

 We loved seeing the Rexburg temple, way up on the hill overlooking campus.  It was a beautiful day to walk around and see the grounds.

Family selfie with Moroni

Doing what we do best: swimming at the hotel pool!

We had heard of a place to visit called Bear World right between Rexburg and Idaho Falls.  We decided to give it a try.  We are totally a wildlife-loving family, so we take any chance we can to see animals up close.  You think I'm joking?

This buffalo was like 12 inches from our car!  He just stared at us and we stared at him.

There are lots of bears, like RIGHT there.  

And this one you can HUG.

The carnival-type rides were a big hit!

 We ended up spending hours in the petting zoo!  There are machines around the perimeter that have food pellets you can purchase and feed to the animals.  Well, we found one that was broken and just turning the crank gave us food.  We kept trying to put money in (we're honest people, geesh), but ended up feeding one particular deer LOTS of food.  We made a best friend that day.

Brent let him practically lick his face off!  Yuck. I told him he'd need to shower before bed...

 It was kind of sad to leave Romney in her dorm room!  We got it all set up with her memory foam mattress pad, her cute matching stuff and lamp, and helped her unpack as much as we could.  She seemed to have nice roommates and lots of parties to start going to, so we skedaddled out of her way and let her live her college life.  Bye, Romney!!

 Brent happened to text his bff from high school to ask him something and mentioned we were dropping a daughter off at BYU-I.  He said, "Me too!" They actually ARE very nature-y so they were CAMPING.  I mean, really?  Really.  They drove into Idaho Falls and met us for dinner at Chili's.  Such NICE people.  It was great to catch up.

 Our favorite thing was to walk from our hotel out their private bridge to the Snake river that the Idaho Falls temple sits on.  You can walk all the way around it see the Falls.  It was beautiful!  We went to church in a chapel right next to the temple, and then went to the Visitors Center and saw a mini-version of the Christus they have there.  The kids even got to do a treasure hunt around the temple grounds.  It was a lovely outing before our long drive home.

The girls loved posing on the dozens of creative benches around the river, but Hartman just did this.

We loved our trip, and were excited to hear of Romney's adventures in college.  Turns out she met a boy the SECOND day named Parker and he wants to marry her.  I guess they don't call it BYU-I DO for nuthin'.