Wisconsin Trip

We made it back from our yearly Wisconsin trip! This year we left on Wednesday, June 18th and drove for two days, arriving on Thursday night. We went the northern route through North Dakota and then on down through Minneapolis, which I have decided I like better than going through South Dakota and southern Minnesota. It seems like you are less out in the middle of nowhere for long stretches of time.

Anyways! Friday night I did my little art show at Bookworld on Main Street (aka: the small event that could make my entire trip a Tax Deduction….haha). On Sunday, June 22, 2014 - Gabe was finally baptized! Yay! Poor kid has been waiting since March to do that. I would have to say that it was worth the wait. It was really nice. Everything went really smoothly and my mom did a little lunch at the church for everyone from the branch who had stayed. I did a short talk about the Holy Ghost and my mom did one about baptism.

Then on Tuesday, Gabe and Caleb came with me and Josh to Noah's Ark (America's Largest water park) and we had a blast. Avery stayed home with my mom. She would've been too small for all the water slides anyways. We had a good day for weather and the lines were pretty small, being a Tuesday. There were a couple of rides that we waited in line for and then Caleb decided, maybe he wasn't quote ready for after all. Haha I had to walk him back down off the the "Black Anaconda" and "Stingray." I will post a picture of each one of those below so this explanation will make sense. On the "Black Anaconda" you go with three people in a tube, one person behind the next so you are in a line. Well we had told Caleb he could be in the middle between me and Josh. But when we got to the front of the line, the guy told us the smallest person had to be in the front and the biggest in the back. Therefore, Caleb would have to be in the front. Me and Josh got into the tube. Caleb stood on the deck, shaking his head no with a face like, "No way in hell I am getting that tube." hahaha So I took the walk of shame with him back down the steps and passed everyone in line, as many parents gave me the sympathetic "We've been there too…" smile. After Josh got down (they let him join another group and Gabe had gone with a group of two other boys we met in line) even Josh admitted, "Yeah, it was pretty intense. It was probably best he didn't go." haha

Then on the Stingray, there are two people that sit facing each other on a double tube. You basically get pushed off this cliff where your tube goes down a giant u-shaped slide and back up to the other side. Well they told Caleb that he would have to go down it facing backwards and he was just not about to let someone push him off a cliff on a tube going backwards. I guess it's good that we have a child that is strong enough to say "no" when he isn't comfortable with something though. Hopefully that lasts into his teenage years.

Other favorite things at Noah's Ar were the Lazy river and the Wave Pool. The boys LOVED the wave pool. Luckily they have life vests available for them to wear now, so they both did. I remember almost dying in the wave pool as a kid so I decided to sunbathe while Josh took them in.

So that was Noah's Ark!

Other highlights of our trip were going to Kohler beach, riding go-carts, bumper boats, and mini-golf at the Fondy Sports park, eating at Culver's at least 8 times (seriously), having dinner with my old friend Gini and her husband, Drake, going to the children's museum, doing the rides at Lakeside Park with grandpa Bestor (my grandpa), the fondy watermark (twice), me shopping with my mom at the outlets and rummage sales, and picking strawberries. It was pretty rainy, lots of cloudy days, but we still squeezed in.

On Sunday, June 29th, Josh blessed Rachel's new baby, Brayden in church. Then afterwards my mom invited all of the Dahlke relatives over for a BBQ. It was good to see some of my cousins that I haven't seen in forever.

Then speaking of people I haven't seen in forever, on Monday even my dad joined the party. We went swimming with my brother's family (they arrived on Saturday, right near the end of our trip) and the kids had a lot of fun. Then grandpa Bestor took us out for Chinese food. The next morning, Tuesday, July 1st, we headed out early in the morning.

It was a really fun trip. We were lucky my grandma let us stay at her condo. She has a basement with a bedroom and living space and bathroom so we were able to spread out. With my sister and her two kids still living with my mom, there was literally no room for us in the inn.

So that as our trip! Pictures to come!

Father's Day

This year for Father's Day Josh wanted to take the boys camping. He had been wanting to for months and it just worked out that Father's Day weekend was the best for our family, Bryan's family (his bro) Ben and Jake (Bros-in-law) and for Brad (their dad). So they went over by Jake's parent's house (Josh's sister's husband) and camped there by the river. Then the next day they got some of Brad's hoses and rode for a while.

For Father's Day we also got Josh a new car. (haha) Okay it was actually about a week before Father's Day, but I think that counts as a good present. We went down to Utah and came back with a black Toyota 4 Runner. It's old but very sporty and actually in pretty good shape. It'll be a good little second car for Josh to take the boys around in on his days off. Here are some pictures of the trip!

Utah Trip (New Office Furniture for Tiff and New Car for Josh)

We decided to make a little trip down to Utah this past week - with two main goals in mind.

1) A trip to  Ikea for me to get office furniture (and can I just say - Ikea is amazing!? I spend five hours in there… Josh took the kids to Cabela's.)

2) A new car for Josh to have to drive on his days off when he wants to take the boys somewhere and I want to stay with Avery or go somewhere else. We have survived with only his police SUV and the minivan for a while now, and we had a good run, but it was getting to be time for a second car. We ended up deciding on a used Toyota 4 runner and we were so lucky to find one that was in really nice shape and was a really good price. After we had looked at about 5 that were total stinkers, we were about ready to give up hope. This was the last one on our list to look at. We are so excited we found one we like! (and to still be car-payment-free! ;)

My office is still in the process but here are some picture of the furniture I got. I repainted it all a blue-green teal color and a still working on putting stuff on the walls.

Quick Story

This all happened in the course of about 10 seconds - seriously. First Josh flipped his spoon at the table, then somehow Caleb did the same thing at the bar. I guess eating cereal can be very difficult for the males. Guess who got to clean it all up though? And people wonder why I spend so much time cleaning...

Caleb's Golden Birthday

Well, I remember my own golden birthday like it was yesterday. I turned 11 on the 11th of July back in 1995. I remember my biggest want at that time, was to become a movie star and ride around in a limo. So for my golden birthday party, my mom threw me this amazing Hollywood themed party. I had about 8 friends over (and my little sister) and we played some kind of movie star games, dressed up in these gowns that my mom probably bought at Goodwill that week, and had a grand time. (Yes, I was 11…not 5. I still liked playing dress up and I still do. haha) But really the whole icing on the cake (the figurative cake - I had a real cake too, probably with real icing) was that I had BEGGED my mom to rent a limo to drive around me and my friends for an hour or so and take them all home from the party in. She had repeatedly said "no." It was like $100 or something crazy to rent the limo for an hour and she was totally not budging on the idea. So I was bummed, but I had accepted it by the time my party day had arrived. So imagine my surprise, when right at the end of the party, my friends start FREAKING out and telling me to go outside! There it was - a white stretch limo - my dream had come true. We all piled in there with our long, Goodwill gowns and treat bags in hand (yes, I know, still 11… haha) and drove around town for about an hour and then started dropping off the girls at their houses. It was probably one of the best days of my life. (Or at least that's how I remember it.) So OF COURSE I wanted my little Caleb's Golden birthday to have the same effect on him!

Did it? I don't know, probably not. haha But I think it was a really fun day! Caleb kind of has this Eyore complex. He gets in these "Nobody likes me… my life is so horrible…" moods. There were a couple of points during the day where I wanted to just shake him and be like, "This is your Golden Birthday! Have fun, dang it!" Most of the time he did, but Josh said there was one point where all eight little boys went running scared out of the playhouse because Caleb was having a "I am missing a Power Rangers Card!" meltdown. haha I was out getting the pizza and missed that. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday (Friday, June 6th) was his actual birthday. We went to Kiwi Loco for some frozen yogurt and to McDonald's for dinner. He got his presents from our family (two Power Rangers toys that he had pointed out on Amazon one day) and also a couple of Transformers that he really liked from my dad that came in the mail. So he had a good day and was anxiously counting down the hours until his party. (He had also been counting down the days for about the past month.)

This morning, we started by picking up his friend, Brayden Calkins, and then picking up Cash (Josh's cousin's little boy, so maybe Caleb's second cousin?) to go to Flips Gymnastic's Center. Diane (Josh's mom) came down from Ashton and brought with her Orrin and Asher (two more cousins) and then Heather brought Berrick and Wilder. Then Bryan brought Brennan and Janelle brought Carter and Tyson, so it was quite amazing that Caleb actually had ever single boy cousin on Josh's side at his birthday party! They all went crazy playing at Flips for about two hours in the foam pit, trampolines, slides, etc.

Once it was about 12:30, we all headed back to Rexburg to our house and I went and got pizza (missed the meltdown) and we had the DQ ice cream cake already in the freezer ready to go. Caleb had requested ice cream cake this year! He picked out one with lots of forest animals on it. Then everyone played at our house for a while and we wrapped it up about 2:00. It was a pretty long birthday extravaganza in my opinion!

Then Caleb and I went to Idaho Falls, where he was planning to pick out a present at Toys R Us from my mom. Let me tell you…. that boy…. he gets his crazy indecisive nature from me. I swear we were in that store for over an hour as he picked up 30 different toys and thought them over before putting them back. Finally, after losing most of my sanity and still needing to go to Winco, I suggested that we go home and he thinks it all over for a few days and then I can order whatever he decides from Amazon.

So he ended up leaving the store with just a canister of Spiderman silly string! haha I am sure he will think of something to spend that money on that is just burning a hole in his pocket! ;)

Some fun facts about Caleb: He wears a size 8 clothes, size 1 shoe. He probably weighs about 70 pounds (yes, about as much, maybe a little more than Gabe) and he has a lovable/hilarious/moody and sensitive personality, depending what time of day it is. ;) He loves Power Rangers, Superheros, Transformers, BeyBlades, Legos, playing with water guns, being with his friends, riding his bike (which he needs a bigger one right now…) and snuggling every night before bed with me. He actually makes me promise when I leave the room (after the first snuggle and tuck in) that I will return to check on him and snuggle him some more, even if he is sleeping. Every night. He may be big, but he's still my baby boy. ;)

Here are some pictures of us at Kiwi Loco on Friday and a couple on Saturday (yes I just realized he wore the same thing two days in a row…) and I need to still download the ones of his with the cake and all of his cousins! I am having camera issues. I can't find my cord. So all of these were taken on my iPhone!