Oakley Dokley!

The last weekend in July we took a short trip up to Oakley Idaho to visit our friends Ben and Kristen!

When I started to pack the car J decided that he needed to help. This is a picture of the second time I found his "Cars" in my car. Well to be truthful, we took Ken's car....It is pretty much the same as mine, only it is white and doesn't have huge crack in the windshield.

I decided that since I was moving car seats around, and since B would turn 1 within a week of our trip AND because B is bigger than several 2 year old's we know, I would let B sit forward facing! He wholeheartedly approved of my decision!

We arrived safely in Oakley on Thursday night, and on Friday we went sightseeing. First we went to Oakley Reservoir  While there we attempted to skip rocks....

....and Ken attempted to skip babies. (no babies were harmed, but there were plenty of baby giggles)

Next we went to the "City of Rocks" . I've been interested in the City of Rocks for years, not because I knew what it was, but because there were signs for it along I-84 and it was an interesting name. Now I know what it is! Apparently, according to what I found when I googled "City of Rocks" this is a location along the Oregon Trail. It has huge Granite Rock Formations- some of them Millions of years old others more like 2.5 BILLION YEARS OLD! I decided that I would like to come back to the City of Rocks and spend more time, maybe even camp for a couple of days. As it was we took a very very short hike.

See, here is J climbing around on a huge chunk of granite!

And here is a picture of B and Me!

And Ken and Ben! They were college roommates years ago, I think they look like they could still be in College. And check out that terrain- I really think I could hike around in there for hours and have lots of fun.

B enjoyed his hike too, why wouldn't he, he got to be right by his mommies heart, and he was shaded the whole time!

There was one thing I really wanted to see in the City of Rocks, one of the "Registration Rocks" apparently Pioneers along the Oregon Trail took to writing their names in axle grease on some of the rocks when they came through this area. Ben and Kristen found this rock for us to look at. See John Galliher at the bottom, he wrote his name in 1880!

By this point, baby B was kind of tired of being in the car. That is, until I handed him a BOOK! This kid loves books, he really acts like he is reading, opens the book, looks for a while, turns the page, looks.... I love it.

Our next stop was Lake Cleveland- it is a beautiful lake near the top of a mountain. We had a picnic lunch there, I don't know if J just wanted to be alone, but about half way through lunch he took his food under the table. He is a cute, silly boy, I am glad he is mine.

This picture is here for two reasons, the first- because Ken and B are so cute, the second- because you can see the scenery- it seriously was an amazingly beautiful location.

Two of Ben and Kristen's older boys noticed that there were some patches of snow, Ben found a way to get to one of them.....

...and they brought back a snowball....a dirty snowball that all the kids got to hold. Did I mention it was the 29th of July?

And what do you do with a dirty snowball that 5 or 6 people have just handled? Well you put it in the shade and then lick it.....several times....well, at least that is what you do if you are little J.

And here are our guests at our final stop of the day, the top of Mount Harrison. From here you could see their house, which I think is pretty awesome. Thanks Ben, Kristen and kids for letting us come visit and taking us sightseeing!

At some point during our sightseeing adventure we asked J if he was enjoying our trip to Oakley, he said "Oakley Dokley!" and I told Ken "That's the name of the Blog Post!" and look- it is!

A random bit of kid cuteness...what do you do if your foot gets stuck between some crib slats while you are sleeping? Well you just cross your other leg over the stuck leg and continue to sleep of course. If only I could sleep like a baby! I am amazed at some of the positions they can get themselves into.....and still sleep.

Can you see the hives? For lunch on Saturday we had bow tie carbonara. It was delicious. I even cut up some pieces and B enjoyed them very much. In fact he enjoyed them so much that I was going to give him more, I tossed a few more bow tie pasta pieces onto the tray of the highchair and before I could cut them into smaller pieces he picked them up and rubbed them all over his face.......yeah, I don't know what rubbing food on your face feels like but B seemed to enjoy it, that is until he broke out in hives, then he didn't like it too much. Never fear- he was washed and given benadryl

So after lunch we packed up the car and headed home. Little J liked traveling so much that he packed up a duffel bag with all his stuffed animals and then climbed into it himself.....I was tempted to send him to Abu Dhabi, but I didn't. I decided to keep him. He is a pretty fun kid after-all, and I wold miss him.

And, a little side note about my health.....On the first night of our trip, as we were going to bed I started to get a sore throat. Friday morning I still had it, but I drank lots of orange juice and took some pain killers and made it through the day just fine, by that night (Friday) I had a fever...so I took some more fever reducing pain killers and tried to sleep well. Saturday morning I ran 8 miles (I was hoping it would help to break the fever, and it kind of did for a while) and by the time we got home that evening I felt like Death, or at least what I think it would feel like to be Death. I took my temp- it was about 102. (it was 101.7, then went up to 102.3). I went to bed early and slept late, the next day I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Strep. After 24 hours of Antibiotics I felt pretty good, tired but the pine cone in my throat was gone. I had about 36 hours of not feeling sick and KABOOM! the whole family got a cold! Lucky Us!