Last weekend Ryan and I went and visited our friends Karen and Jesse in Idaho Falls (yes, a very faraway place) to take one of our last chances to get away without a baby. Here's Karen and Jesse:
They have a very beautiful park-like place along the Snake River called the Green Belt that we walked along and enjoyed the scenery, especially the Idaho Falls temple in the back ground.
They had a lot of geese and ducks along the river so Ryan and Jesse fed them pretzels that we had brought for a snack for the trip. Karen and I were a little more cautious and stood about 30 feet away like chickens. One of the geese kept trying to sneak around behind Ryan like it was going to steal his bag of pretzels. Fortunately Ryan is a pretty smart guy and managed to keep just one step ahead of the birds.
For some reason there is a random Japanese-looking pagoda-type maybe thing right next to the river. We did our best to look as Japanese as possible for a picture.
We also went to the Tautphaus zoo in Idaho Falls, which actually turned out to be one of my favorite zoos because of its not-too-big size and very active animals. The best was two little monkeys that were total show-monkeys. They would swing around like crazy, hooting and hollering, then the white one would come down and smack against the glass, surprising everyone in the area. We learned later from a zoo keeper that the white monkey is a female, and is very protective of her mate. So, when a blond girl was standing by the glass she got defensive and smacked against it to scare her off. There were a lot of blond ladies around when we were there, so we saw it a lot. They also would pose for pictures, but Ryan was never quite fast enough to get a good one.
Our other exotic adventure was for Pioneer Day, when we went to our friends' parent's cabin in faraway Wallsburg, Utah. It is a really cute, tiny town. The city center includes city hall, a store called Jose's, and a post office. But they did have some awesome Pioneer Day activities! We went to a parade in the morning where there were tons of kids on four-wheelers and some vintage cars. Then Ryan, Trent, and Natalie went four-wheeling and later the boys shot some BB guns at pop cans full of water (which were pretty safe from any BBs actually getting into them). Here's the mountain men:
Later we went to a children's rodeo "in town" and saw about fifty kids chasing chicken and rabbits in a big dirt field. That was quite a sport. We also saw some five and six year-olds "busting mutton," aka riding sheep. I also saw the tiniest little girl doing barrel racing on a huge horse (which, when I say "racing," I mean walking the horse at a leisurely speed). Here we are, baking in the sun:
