Meridell Park

Gavin's sister and her husband manage an event center and homestead in Pocatello called Meridell Park. We were so excited to get a tour while we were there. It was beautiful. The event center is gorgeous and a fun piece of Pocatello history. They have a huge orchard and garden, but the best part (according to Emery) was the animals! We met chickens, their goat Ginny, turkeys, and a duck with her little ducklings.

 Emery liked feeding the goat through the fence:

But wasn't too sure about Ginny once she was out of the fence:

She did really like the chickens and the chicken coop. She was telling me all about how the little chickens will run to their little house and say "Momma! Momma!" if they get scared and will race in there and lots more stuff I don't remember.

We also had fun playing in the grassy fields and running around with cousins. Here's a few pictures of them:

 It was such a fun morning. Thanks for hosting and giving us the tour Rob and Lauren! Meridell Park is a beautiful place! If anyone in southeast Idaho needs an event center, definitely check it out! Plus I think they are doing a pumpkin patch this fall! www.meridellpark.com

Princess on a Bike

So my last post I mentioned how much Emery loved playing with Olivia's toys. Her BIKES were especially fun for Emery. Olivia has a little one that is a perfect size for Emery, but no, she always wanted to ride the big girl one. I snapped this picture the first time she rode it because her face is so cute. She was so proud of herself for being on that big bike but she's trying to act all casual about it.

"No big deal, Mom, I'm just chillin' on the big girl bike."

Natalie was super patient to push her around on it for awhile. What a great aunt! Moments like these where we've just enjoyed dinner together as a family and the cousins are all having fun make me sad we live so far away. 

Splash pad with cousins

It's time to play catch up on the blog. We took a wonderful trip to Idaho for a few weeks in July and had such a great time. We celebrated the 4th of July "Cornwall Style" (that's my mom's family, they know how to patriotically party!), camped a few times, stayed up way too late (it doesn't get dark in Idaho until 10 pm!), slept in every day, played with cousins, and made memories to last us until next year. It was a busy and very full trip but I felt like we accomplished a lot.

Here's some pictures of our trip to a splash pad with my nephew and niece. My nephew JJ is so adorable, he has the BIGGEST smile ever--it lights up his whole body--and he is ALWAYS smiling. What a sweetheart. He loved the water!

And here's the always spunky Olivia, posing for the camera! Emery loved playing with all her stuff and Olivia was so patient to share it.

So much fun! When we left Idaho Emery kept asking if we could go back and play at Olivia's house. Thanks goodness for Facetime. We miss them already. 

Broken window

We had an extremely eventful trip to a splash pad this week. And by extremely eventful I mean terrible. It was a blast for the first 2 hours, we met up with family and had fun with cousins and then some friends came too. It started to DOWNPOUR and my friend and I were the last ones there, trying to get out of there in the least traumatic way possible. I ran ahead to my car through the pouring rain (which was not very far away, the parking lot is right next to the splash pad) and stopped in my tracks when I saw my passenger window broken out. I knew the second I looked that my purse had been stolen. I ran back to my friend and explained the situation. She was a saint as she helped me sort through everything and figure out what to do. It was a mess and there was glass everywhere. I had stashed my purse mostly underneath the console between my front seats and tossed a blanket over the other side and my purse wasn't 100% covered up but with the tint on the windows it would not have been easy to see. Thankfully I had my phone on me and very little cash in my wallet. We cancelled the credit cards and called the police to report it and waited for them to come. This is what Emery did while we waited:

She had played hard and was so tired. I was really thankful she slept because we were there for an hour waiting for the police to arrive.

It was really unfortunate weather for this because it kept raining really hard which is bad when you have a busted window. Wendy had a car full of supplies so she borrowed me a huge umbrella to put in the window that kept the water out. This is what we did with the other umbrella so we could talk while we waited:

She's a clever woman! She has two boys who were being so patient, but an hour is a long time to wait in a car and I told her she could go but she stayed right there with me through the whole thing. I was so grateful for that. I also really admired the way she taught her boys about it. They would ask, "Mom, can we go now?" And her reply was, "No son, we can't, we never leave a damsel in distress or a friend that needs our help. We take care of people." It was really inspiring to me to see that, and gets me a little teary eyed just typing it. I wish all moms of boys taught those principles, and moms of girls too, of course.

We immediately cancelled our cards but they did end up getting $100 of gas off my credit card. I found that out yesterday when I was checking my accounts. The bank should take care of that since we reported it stolen but I'm mostly just mad they got something from robbing me. Pretty vengeful of me, right? Another frustrating part of this ordeal was that the driver side back door doesn't even lock unless I do it manually which I usually forget. So my car was unlocked and they broke a window. Seriously guys? Couldn't you at least TRY THE DOORS first?! As the officer who came to take the report said, "If they were smart enough to think of that, they wouldn't be robbing cars in the first place."

Pool time

The sun was just too bright for these two:

Backstreets back, ALRIGHT!!!

My friend found some tickets to Backstreet Boys on Groupon a few weeks ago and we both couldn't resist the nostalgia so we went! Avril Lavigne opened for them and it was a crazy, wild, and hilarious trip down memory lane. Nick, this guy:

Who now looks like this:

Told us to "act like [we were] 15 years old and party like it was 1999". And so we did. We screamed, squealed, danced our hearts out and sang along at the top of our lungs. It was an absolute BLAST!!! Here's some 15 year old girl selfies from the concert:

We were as excited as we looked. We brought some really good Thai food with us and the red curry was PERFECT so I was even more happy. I'm picky about red curry and this one NAILED it. Yum.

It was so fun but I couldn't help but think about what the singers REALLY thought about this concert. Avril Lavigne was up there in this weird black tutu with a skeleton on the shirt, jumping around like she's a 16 year old girl while we are having a blast belting out Sk8er Boi. But I'm just watching her thinking, "This is weird. She's almost 30 years old. Is she enjoying this? Or rolling her eyes wishing we would all just get over the past and listen to her new stuff?" It got even worse when the Backstreet Boys came out and a few of them spoke like they were 14 year old surfer boys. I wondered if this was how they are all the time or was this just part of the act? But isn't that 14 year old boy act what the audience wanted? It just seemed weird. I guess I'm growing up? 

Not too grown up though...

It was really fun to realize how many memories I have attached to some of those songs. I reminisced  making up dances to "Larger Than Life" with cousins growing up, slow dancing with boys at stake dances, and singing harmonies to the songs in my car as my friends and I drove around. It was a night to remember!

Sunday slippers

Emery really wanted to wear slippers to church on Sunday. Gavin was explaining to her why we shouldn't wear them and it was such a cute moment I had to capture it.

She decided he was right and wore her sparkly shoes instead. :)