Just Plain Old Ordinary FUN FUN FUN Wooden Blocks (Fourth Post in the Classic Toys Series)

What can I say? They are pieces of wood. Some of them painted colors, some of them not. Wood. Favorite toy. These are, incidentally, another Wendell Bunnell contribution. He went on a trip for a couple of weeks this summer, and to help repair the sadness of him being away for so long, he brought our family a boatload of presents. Seriously, everyone should have a Wendell for a neighbor - not for the presents, just for the cute. The world would be a happy place. Anyway, one of the things that he gave to the whole family was a set of wooden blocks. We ALL play with these. You could argue what the kids have more fun doing - whether it is building or knocking down - I say it's a great combination! These pictures are of a NEW game we thought of with the blocks. We build these fun little city things and hide little stuff in them and then make a list of the items that are hidden for people to find. Sort of an I-SPY game. Hours of fun. Wood. Really.

Can you get more classic than WOOD?

LEGO My LEGOs! (Third Post in the Classic Toys Series)

Ah, Legos. I remember the happiness from when I was a young child, "He's hogging all of the reds! She won't let me have one of the base thingies to build on!! Hey! Who wrecked the house I made three weeks ago (sobbing). That was my FAVORITE ONE and now it's RUINED!!!" We have the cutest neighbors in the world (yes, Jill, you can take some credit for that). One of our neighbors is Wendell Bunnell. Wendell is a "Classic Toy" all on his own, and I should probably do a post in this series for HIM, we'll see how far I get... anyway, Wendell called one day and asked if I would like a bucket of Legos that he had found while he was rummaging in the basement. ARE YOU KIDDING??? Have any of you priced Legos lately? So we jumped on that right away. Well, our children are learning ancient fighting techniques that are only discovered when one is trying to protect their share of the Legos, AND our living room floor has not been clean since. But, I must say, I don't hold Wendell responsible, it is the nature of children and their precious Legos.

And so again I say, Ah, Legos. The classic toy that leads to the classic family fun pastime, fighting. May it ever be so...

LOVING Family Doll House (Second Post in the Classic Toys Series)

I need to post twice a day to get everything done that I want to do. That will happen. Anyway, I am posting about a doll house today and it makes me want to do the "Painting Accomplished" blog that I still need to do about my kitchen, bathroom, girls room... from when Devon came to visit - and to show you the darling bedspreads Joy made for my girl's room. Maybe after I finish telling you about our favorite toys - oh, right - that's what I was doing.

I love doll houses. My friend Amy had a post a while back about her husband finding the EXACT doll house she loved and played with as a child, on ebay, and buying it for her. I just think that a toy that you can remember and love CLEAR into your own motherhood days, is a great toy. My girls arrange the furniture all the time and they keep the doll house cleaner than their own room - not that that makes the doll house CLEAN, mind you, the girls room is one constant battle. I have to confess two things. First of all, I sort of bought the Loving Family because I liked their marketing scam of ACTING like they were selling loving to families. Second, one day, when the Loving Family had migrated to the living room and stayed for several annoying days, I said to Ella (in a very loud, not so happy voice) "ELLA! COME PICK UP THIS DANG HAPPY FAMILY RIGHT NOW!!!" Ella's response was an equally loud, "THEY AREN'T THE 'HAPPY' FAMILY THEY ARE THE 'LOVING' FAMILY!!!" Oh, like us huh? I'm glad that my girls love to play with doll houses. I love to play with them too. Girls, now THERE is a classic!

Leaves (First Post in the Classic Toys Series)

I love when the kids do things that are "timeless". What child hasn't found fun in making a pile of leaves in the fall and jumping into - throwing - scooping and tossing and raining down on them - leaves are a classic toy. I love the smell of leaves in the crisp air. I love the explosion of color on the branches. I LOVE when you are driving down a street with a lot of mature trees and there is just enough of a breeze to make it snow leaves all the way down the block. It makes me miss Shady Lane in Philadelphia. It was, just what it's name implies, a lane that curved through a series of beautiful old estates all of which had hundreds of trees. The trees stretched out over the road making a complete ceiling of branches. We drove through it to get to Brad's campus and I loved the spring with they were all pastel buds and the fall when it would absolutely DUMP brightly colored leaves from the sky at a non-stop pace for days. I'm not saying that I don't miss summer, I think we all know that's my favorite - but there are some amazing things about fall!

I've Got to Find Out Who I Am

For any of you who ever went to The Seminary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 80's you will be familiar with the song, "I've Got to Find Out Who I Am". And when I do I know I'll be all I can, when I find out who I am. Okay, anyway, my girls LOVE those CD's and listen to the music a lot. Well today Ella stayed home from school and she and Anna put on a small concert. The best part is that their costume choice leads you to believe that they are going to find out they are just like their MOM!!! I was cracking up so hard that I could hardly hold the camera still. I love my girls - even if they end up "finding out who they are" and discover that they are witches like ME! Oh, parenthood, how you make me smile (and cuss, and cry and laugh and...)

I Scream... You Scream...

We ALL scream for Ice Cream!!!

My favorite kind of ice cream is dark chocolate base (surprise) with lots of nuts (the nuts can be chocolate covered too as long as the chocolate on the outside is not hard or frozen - even with the cold temperature of the ice cream - I hate frozen chocolate shards in my ice cream). I also approve strongly of brownie chunks and fudge swirls in my chocolate ice cream. When we lived in Philadelphia there was a brand of ice cream that they sold - I can't remember what it was called now - but they had a special edition "Berried Treasure" that was cheesecake ice cream with cheesecake chunks and squishy fruit globs with sugary syrup around them. Emily? Back me up here. Okay, weigh in (bad choice of words, I suppose)! What is YOUR favorite ice cream???

While We Are On The Subject...

Okay, so if you read the LAST blog (Once Upon A Time) this will make more sense. I told you I still hadn't blogged about our friends, the Stokers, coming to visit this summer. They came because they had a family reunion in Island Park - but they decided to visit their FAVORITE people first. I tried to make dinner for everyone but was SO distracted with vacation plans that I burnt EVERYTHING to a crisp! Luckily the conversation and atmosphere were great - otherwise I think the whole evening would have left a bad taste in our mouths - ha ha - get it? Bad taste? Never mind. The kids sure didn't mind. They sat on top of the swing set talking and watching the sunset. I don't know what they discussed the whole time - probably the issues of the world, politics, religion, and video games. I think we had as much fun watching them as they did being together. Hopefully there are some seeds of love being sewn, but I won't say that here because we don't want to encourage dating for 259 years and also, I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone!

Then we went to Yellowstone. Can you believe how many children we have between the two of us? Holy cow! For us, Rhineharts, it was our second time this year of going to the park, which is funny because in the 5 years of living in Idaho Falls we had not YET taken our children, until this summer. Anyway, we saw a lot of wildlife including a Grizzly bear cub. The best part was that we had a boy car and a girl car - well, a mostly girl car. Brad and Chris didn't trust us enough on our own so they had Austin ride with us to make sure we behaved ourselves. We did sneak a few things past him, but he was a pretty strict disciplinarian. At the entrance gate the ranger gave them a wildlife sheet and the girls had a ton of fun looking for the animals on the sheet while Shel and I speculated that all the "wildlife" was REALLY in the other car! Oh, the poor boys. We had a picnic lunch and got out at every site we wanted to visit. I think we were all just happy to be with the Stokers. I hope that some day these things - hanging out on the swing set past dark and riding with friends through Yellowstone - will be the memories that our children talk about.

By the way, this last picture? You totally need to click on it and see it in big size. We got this stupid mule deer mid bite. He is even chewing with his mouth open. Obviously his mother never taught him any manners.

Once Apon A Time...

This is a good story. It started a few months ago - well, actually it ORIGINALLY began just 8 days after Brad and I were married. It was Sunday, September 8th, 1996. We were in our little newly married student ward for the first time ever and this cute little girl stood up to speak. She said, in effect, "We just got married a couple of months ago and we are new in the ward. We are looking for friends - so come be our friends!". At this point I leaned over and said to Brad "THERE WE GO!!! Those people will be our friends!!!" And that was that. We latched onto Chris and Shelley and never let go. We had Tanner and got pregnant with Madsen and just like a TRUE friend, Shelley got pregnant too - and since we already HAD one child, and this was her first, she DECIDED to have TWINS so that she would have the SAME amount as ME (nice huh?). We graduated at the same time and moved about the same time, she and Chris to Boise, Brad and me to Philadelphia. We love these people - indeed, if anything happens to Brad and I when the children are too young to care for themselves, Chris and Shelley are the people we have chosen to raise our children (I know, now you are starting to doubt whether, in fact, we like them AT ALL - but let me say, that we have taken out life insurance sufficient to let them hire a full-time nanny and tour the Caribbean islands). Anyway - this is becoming a VERY long version of an ENTIRELY different story...

A couple of months ago Chris and Shelley and their children came and stayed with us (we actually went through Yellowstone with them - but that is a different blog I haven't done yet) and while I was burning dinner the first night (sorry guys) Shelley asked, almost apologetically, if I would ever consider going on a girls vacation with her. Without kids? Without husbands? Without reservation? ABSOLUTELY!!! And so, over the next several weeks we explored many options - the East coast, the West coast, Cancun, Hawaii, the moon - there were very few places that were not considered. In the end we decided that with our time (half of a vacation spent on an airplane is hardly a vacation) and courage (do we really want to traverse Mexico without male escorts?) and resources (How many THOUSANDS of dollars is it to go to Savannah Georgia?) that we would go to the place where EVERYTHING is. LAS VEGAS. How else can you see people riding in a Gondola, eat lunch by the Eiffel Tower, and spend the night in the Chrysler Building all in one weekend?

So... Two weeks ago today (Wednesday) I jumped into Brad's car ALL BY MYSELF and began my drive to Boise to meet Shel and catch our flight. I was a little sad to leave but before I was on the freeway I had already answered three phone calls about Lego Disputes - and then, having been cured of sadness, I was free to enjoy my trip. We flew from Boise to Las Vegas. We stayed at the New York. We enjoyed Ben and Jerry EVERY NIGHT (how I miss those boys!) We walked and walked and walked (like the pioneers, although I doubt they were violated as we were by the "literature" being distributed all around us). We saw the #1 rated show on the strip, "Jersey Boys", we saw the Hoover "dang" and did a session at the Las Vegas Temple.

I've saved my favorite part for last. The food. The first day we had lunch with my friends Carrie and Jessica at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reba. It was WARM and SUNNY and we ate outdoors (I had driven in snow to get to Boise, mind you). We had stuffed mushrooms, a salad, sea scallops with couscous, flat bread and mini sliders. DELICIOUS - also VERY fun to see Carrie and Jess - it's been a while.

Devon drove up Thursday night (that is how we were able to see things off the strip - thanks Dev for coming and chauffeuring us around so that we could get a view from a Buick) - we at breakfast at an Italian restaurant, Il Fornio. The bread was AMAZING - the rest was too - but I have DREAMS of that bread. We had lunch at the Eiffel Tower, which we also took on the patio and had a FRONT row seat for the Fountains at the Belagio show. On Saturday, before we flew home, we ate a Bobby Flay's "MESA Grille". Yum. Seriously. I had a BBQ lamb Cobb salad with blue cheese. Yum. Did I already say that? The waitress was great - she even packed up some biscuits and muffins and breads for me to take back to Brad (who was very excited for the little pieces of heaven). We just had a great time. It was relaxing and fun and full of little memorable moments - indeed the lady on the row in front of ours during the show had a laugh that is impossible to duplicate (possibly our favorite PART of the show - would you say Shel?). It was carefree. Devon and Shelley didn't ask me to solve a SINGLE fight that they had. I think it was great for all of us. So Thanks to Brad for staying and paying and pretending he missed me. Thanks Shelley for the idea and for going. Thanks for coming and for driving us Devon. Thanks to Carrie and Jessica for lunch and the reception. And, last but not least, thanks for watching my kids so I could go, mommy.

That said, I was glad to come back too. I got home late Saturday night (nearly Sunday) to a clean house, sleeping children - who only woke long enough to hug me really tight, and a husband who sat with me and listened to my stories and enjoyed his MESA grille treats and let me play the new CD he bought for me while I was gone (yeah Diana Krall!).

And so, I guess that you could say, "...and she lived happily ever after." Where are we going next??? Just kidding, Brad (wink wink, Shel!!!)

The end.