Fun in Idaho . . . WooHoo I have a van!

So lets just start with the most exciting news and then I will share our mini vacation with you. I am driving a minivan! Hooray! I told Brent it is official I am a real mom now and I have the van to prove it! This is Brent's brother Brian he helped us to get the minivan and did all the paperwork up for us. As usual he took great care of us. We are lucky to have him help us! As you can see my van is shiny blue my favorite color. It is a dodge grand caravan and has a dvd player in the ceiling. Sage calls it the movie car and wants to make sure that when Brent or I go to work we don't take "HER movie car." I went to work last night and no one had to tell her what two vehicles meant. She wanted Dad to take her for chicken nuggets and up to the mountain for a walk. Apparently she doesn't miss me as much as the lack of transportation. Anyway I love my new van and I am so excited to have it!

Well back to our vacation. We drove to Boise, ID on Friday and stayed with Brian and Rose Ridgeway. We had a wonderful time and they spoiled us. We enjoyed the evenings by sitting in their fabulous backyard enjoying the cool air and the great view and chatting for hours. They made the most amazing barbecued beef for dinner on Saturday, oh my I can't wait to have it again. It was excellent he shared his recipe with us so I will share it too because oh my gosh you all so want to try this! So without further ado:

Brian Ridgeway's Beef Brisket!

Stir in a bowl:
2 1/2 cups Catsup
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups chili sauce
1 1/2 cups white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
3/4 can beer
3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup prepared mustard
1 Tbsp. celery seed
4 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp. Soy sauce
2 cloves of garlic minced
ground pepper to taste

Slice brisket and marinate in sauce overnight in refrigerator. Place all of the sauce and brisket in a disposable foilware pan. Cover pan tightly with foil. Place inside barbecue on low heat for 3-4 hours or until meat is tender. Oh my can I just tell you it is amazing. We are going to try the sauce on one of Brent's favorite dutch oven recipes of chicken and broccoli.

As usual you can't get two Ridgeway brothers together without Guns at least coming into the conversation. Brent had the same gun as Brian and helped him to get it clean as it was tricky to take apart. I have to say in my untrained opinion it was an impressive improvement.

Our niece, Kelsi was so cute with the girls. They loved her. They keep asking when we can go back to Rose's house and play with Kelsi. Kelsi had these cool nail polishes and did the girls fingers and toes for them. Sage was in HEAVEN!
As we were leaving we took these pictures of the girls with Uncle Brian, Aunt Rose and Kelsi. Kelsi loved Gunner and wanted me to accidentally forget him and leave him with her.There is a Cabela's in Boise and as the girls are HUGE fans of Cabela's we had to stop and take a look. It is a mini version of our Lehi without a few things. Ours is definitely much grander and on a much larger scale. The girls had fun but it was a short visit. Sage and I both liked this one. It is almost at the top of the hill in the middle of the store. Never seen one done up licking its back before!On our way home we took several detours. The first was to Twin Falls, ID where we saw first the I.B. Perrine Memorial Bridge. We took a walk under it and over to the visitors center and back. The present bridge was constructed in 1976 at a cost of $10,565,000. It is 1500 feet long the longest span bridge in the west, and stands 486 feet above the river and contains 9,000,000 pounds of steel. It is a four lane bridge with walkways on both sides (which Sage wanted to walk on OF COURSE! Daredevil girl.) The first I.B. Perrine bridge was built in 1927 just west of the present bridge It was used for 49 years before being replaced with the current bridge. I am personally very grateful that it was replaced because it just doesn't look safe to me. Both bridges were named in honor of I.B. Perrine, the man who first settled in Snake River Canyon in 1884. Sage and Aspen enjoyed posing in front of the various memorials and statues along the way.

Another interesting thing we learned about the area was that Evel Kneivel tried to jump the canyon. On September 8, 1974 he attempted the jump on a rocket powered contraption he called a "motorcycle." His "motorcycle" was equipped with a large parachute designed to slow his decent once he reached the north side of the canyon. When he blasted off something malfunctioned and his parachute came out almost immediately after he became airborne. This stopped his jump and the parachute lowered him into the canyon.
After all this excitement we headed to Shoshone Falls. They were truly amazing! They are sometimes called the Niagara Falls of the west and I can see why. In fact, the Shoshone Falls tumble 212 feet to the canyon floor, more than 50 feet farther than the famous Niagara Falls.

I love this picture of my happy dirty little dog. Looks like it is bath time again!

While driving around trying to find other places we managed to drive by both the Boise and the Twin Falls Temples. Boise Temple is very unusual and I liked how the top of the Twin Falls spire is done in blue tile so it blends with the sky and makes the angel on top almost float.

After all this hiking and fun we finally headed for home with only 20+ stops for restroom breaks, walking the dog, diaper changes, swapping dvd's, changing the kids into pj's, etc. We finally arrived home a little after midnight. I had pictured carefully carrying sleeping children to their beds. . . Nope they were wide awake. Aspen was crying that she just wanted to go home all the way up our street and wouldn't believe me that we were almost there. Once we arrived home they had to carefully gather all their things up and head up the stairs where they decided it was time for breakfast. I fed them cold cereal and was so glad to finally get them into bed. I have to admit I had to clean everything out of my new van that night and the next morning I took the shop vac to it to so it was perfect again.