Good Old Idaho

So to make it out to Idaho for Erika's wedding I had my brother James help me make the 12+ hour drive. I was really grateful to have him with me, especially since it rained the whole second half of the drive. And we laugh about it now, but we were getting on each other's nerves about how we were driving and so on. We had already spent a week and a half together and were starting to act too much like a married couple, haha. But we only needed to drive to SLC to pick up Luke since he had been out of town working in Albuquerque. Then we just stayed in Utah for the night at Luke's sister's house- where I might add that the whole city had the power out until at least midnight, so that was interesting too. But the next day we had beautiful weather and the four of us finshed the drive to Twin Falls.

Jacob did great on all the car trips too, he didn't sleep as much as I would have liked, but he still did very well! And none of us had even been to the western side of Idaho or Twin Falls, so the scenery was much different than what we were used to in eastern Idaho and we really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere on the drive. But when we made it into Twin Falls, it was actually a pretty good sized town, I really liked Twin Falls!
We met up with my parents and my Grandma Varna who were already there. The rest of my family went with Tyler and some friends water rafting down some river, so the rest of us decided to check out the Falls. I didn't realize at the time that Twin Falls actually had a waterfall, and not only that, but they were huge!
Further down from the falls, on the main road you go over a really long bridge, and at the bottom there's actually an island where there are houses and 2 golf courses and everything- it was gorgeous!

We spent a long time checking out the falls, they were really incredible!

Then we wandered over a little bit to where the water just sits as a lake and Luke decides he wants to jump in! The water was a lot further down from the rocks than it looks, but there he goes!

He jumped in a couple more times after this and even recruited random kids to jump in too, haha he's a little crazy. Actually I think he gets so bored working all the time, that he was desperate for some fun and spontaneity!

We went out to eat for lunch every day with all my family, Tyler, and my grandparents Varna & Craig, and Vic & Susan. One day we went to this pizza buffet that had little arcades and rides and Jacob loved driving this little taxi car!

On Friday, the day before the big wedding, Erika was able to go through the temple for the first time. Here is a picture I took of the Twin Falls temple from the car- pretty good shot huh?

Here's Erika and Tyler- the soon to be married couple! Those of us that had been to the temple before were also able to attend to support Erika, so that was my parents, grandparents Varna and Craig, James, and Luke and I. Tyler was there of course too, and with his parents. So that was also a very special day and it was so nice to be with my family in the temple, especially since that rarely happens, and was the first time I'd been there with James or Erika.

Friday night, the night before the wedding, the Pickens family hosted a dinner in their backyard for all the family and close friends there for the wedding.

Here's Jacob with me and all my sisters!

Here's Jacob with Erika, this was about the best shot that I could get of the two of them the entire weekend! Silly Jacob was tired of everyone trying to get a picture with him ;)

After dinner, I hosted a newlywed game for Tyler and Erika that actually turned out to be really fun! I had about 20 questions so that were enough for everybody attending to ask one question at a time to the couple, and then Tyler and Erika used their boards to record their answers. The idea was for them to come up with the same answer, and I think they only ended up getting about 5 right! It was pretty fun, and we got to know a lot more about the two of them, and I think they learned a little bit more about each other too!

After dinner, the game, and a dutch oven dessert, the Pickens set off fireworks in their driveway. All the Idaho family and friends sat directly in front of the fireworks, and then all of us in the Meiners family sat way back in the yard- I think we were all too scared to sit any closer!

But Jacob enjoyed the show! Even though he was tired he watching intently and clapped the whole time :)

It was so fun getting together with all my family, and getting to know Tyler's family more too. The next day was the wedding and everything went smoothly, the weather was great and everything was beautiful. Luke and I left Idaho Sunday, I dropped Luke back off at the SLC airport so that he could fly back to Albuquerque for one more work week, and then I made the drive home with Jacob and arrived in Denver just after midnight Sunday night. But the trip was well worth it!