On the Way to the Bar J

Our driver for the evening ride.

Actually - he was the driver for pretty much the entire vacation!

For those of you who have never seen potatoes growing...

Here's a field of potatoe plants - right by Jeremy's house.

Each potatoe plant has 6 - 8 potatoes. The longer you leave them underground, the bigger they get. See - I did learn something from his vacation!

These next two shots are of the Grand Tetons.

There was some beautiful country between Jeremy's house and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
It is about an hour and a half drive.

I wish I had a better camera to do justice to the beauty of this country.

I guess all of you will just have to make a trip up to see it for yourself!

More Vacation at The Bar J

Doug wanted to take the family somewhere a little different, but fun while staying at Jeremy and Jo's. Jeremy asked around and many people recommend going to the "Bar J Chuckwagon Supper and Western Music Show." It was just a few minutes out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

I called a week early to make reservations. You let them know how many people and when you arrive you were assigned a table. The earlier you arrived - the closer you were seated to the stage. Gate opened at 5:30, we got there at 6:00 - and were on the second to last table! This place would hold nearly 600 people and they all got there early! Since dinner wasn't served until 7:00, so we just hung around outside and in, seeing what there was.

Here are some pictures of before the dinner and show.

I really like this picture of Doug. He doesn't let me take too many of just him!
The Alldredge girls (I should have gotten Emma in this shot too!)

This was was actually during dinner.

Hey - maybe I ought to plant flowers in my wagon that I have in my front yard. It's almost like this one - mine just doesn't have the metal across the top.

Outside the main building.

The next few shots are of the decor inside.
Doug enjoyed checking it all out. And no - I will not let him decorate my house like this.

Like I said - there were almost 600 people there for the show.

They have the show from Memorial Day to Labor Day - 7 nights a week.

It is pretty much sold out every night.
They were very organized. Everyone had their food in 20 minutes.

I must say - the food was not all that great, especially knowing what we paid.

After we got done eating, the owner of the place came on stage and started talking.

He went on about the 'ol trail drives and why we were served the food we had for dinner.

He went on and on and on.................

At this point - Jeremy was getting a little bit nervous. He said he was thinking

"oh man, I had Dad bring us here and spend all that money".

Then..........the owner introduced

"The Bar J Wranglers"

Soon into the program we knew why so many people came back.

They not only sang - they were very funny.

I don't know when we all laughed so hard.

The show definately made it all worth it.

Here are three of the members of the group.

Another one.

And one more.

This fiddle player was very good. He had been the US national fiddler champ for 2 years.

When the show was all done - Jason said,

"We have to buy some of their CD's."

S0 we did. 2 of them.

One of them just singing, the other is a live recording of a show a few years ago.

It is extemely funny too. We listened to it on the way back to Jeremy's house.

And was laughing the entire time.

They do a different routine every year.

Would we recommend the show - YES!

Would we go back again - YES, despite the food.

Emma's Early Birthday

Saturday - the 25th - we celebrated Emma's birthday a month early. Well, at this party she didn't have any presents to unwrap. Mainly because both sets of grandparents - who happened to be in Idaho at the same time - gave EmmaLee her presents before going out to eat.

She only got a little bit spoiled!

We went to eat at a place called "Sundae's Eats & Treats" in Idaho Falls.

Let me tell you - the food we had was really good. And the french fries - I'll just say this, the potatoes came fresh from a farm, freshly cut and fried. Need I say more - other than we got a ton of them? Most of us ordered hamburgers (which Doug and I shared one- good thing since they were so big and came with sooo many fries, but Kristi ordered the chicken strips. Each strip was a wide as her hand - that's a big chicken! It was all so good!

Carson decided that the more straws the better!
Here's the ice cream that Doug and I ordered. It was delicious. All the desserts were huge.
Jeremy and Jo's ice cream.
Dani and Kristi's banana split - the kid size one.
At first we just put some ice cream on a plate for Carson. He threw a fit.
I had to go ask for a bowl. After that - he was a very happy boy.

Jason got his own ice cream. After eating his huge hamburger and some french fries, he had a hard time finishing his ice cream.

Emma really enjoyed her ice cream. She even tried eating it with her hand.

By the way - we had so many french fries left, we took an entire box back to Jeremy's with us - along with quite a few containers of homemade fry sauce. Kristi also had a chicken "strip" left.

You definately get your money's worth here.

If you look at Jo's photography blog you saw more pictures of our lunch out.

If you haven't looked at it - check it out

joalldredgephotography.blogspot.com

Rexburg Temple

Here are some pictures at the Rexburg Temple. Notice they are all of the same view. Sorry.

We were all tired when we went by so the kids got out for what was going to be a quick picture.

However - everytime I went to take a group shot of the kids - they all thought they had to have an individual picture taken too. Carson even got into it too. "My turn" he would say.

I did get out of getting one of him by himself this time. Watch for future postings - he'll have his own shot in some of those.

This is the Idaho Falls Temple. We didn't get out of the car here - just drove by.

I still have so much to post about on our trip - and the rest of the summer.

Hope you all aren't too bored yet.

Fireworks

Jason was so excited when he heard that we would be able to do fireworks in Idaho for the 24th of July - seeing that we can't do any thing here. He was a little disappointed though that we didn't get into Jackson Hole to buy the "big" fireworks (much bigger than the ones they sell in Idaho). Oh well, we'll have to try for that next time.

But we did get to have a small fireworks show out on the farm.

Here's the crew - with Carson doing his first "sparkler". He loved them and wanted more!

Dani and Carson enjoying the show.

It was just a little bit cooler up there in the evenings than here in Mesa.

One of our bigger fireworks display.

Even the cows seemed to enjoy the show - for awhile at least.

One of the fireworks we did was pretty loud - and got the cows stirred up.

So we moved out onto the road in front of their house.

It's usually pretty quiet out there. However, just as we were finishing a car came speeding up the road. Before the guys got everything picked up - they had to move out of the way.

The hadn't picked up the propane lighter they had been using.

The car ran over it.

Now that was a big boom - and a quick firework all in itself.

Friends Together Again!

Carson was so excited when he got to Idaho and Jeremy and Jo's. He had really missed playing with EmmaLee. On our way up there he would say "I love EmmaLee."

It was so cute and fun to watch them play together. They got along pretty well.

(The only time they would fight would be over pushing her little stroller with the baby doll in it. Too funny!)

As you will notice, I stole some more pictures off of Jo's blog. Thanks Jo.

(her pictures are so much better than mine anyway) I'm sure you can tell which are by her and which ones I took!

Here they both are playing with EmmaLee's birthday toy from her Grandma/Grandpa Brewer.

Farm toy - hmm - fits good - don't you think.

We tried to get them to both pose - but they wouldn't cooperate.

We were at the Bar J Wranglers dinner show.

Hanging out before the show.

Having fun with the rocks. The show was just a little bit too long for them.

We all squeezed in tight into our Sequoia. Carson and EmmaLee loved it - especially since they could watch Dora The Explorer while traveling. (poor Kristi sat between the two carseats.)

Playing out in the yard.

They would pull leaves off the bushes/trees then drop them into the little stream of water under the bridge. They loved it!

Planting - or digging up flowers? You guess.

Enjoying the waterfall in Yellowstone.

Carson has sure missed his most favorite playing buddy. They get along so well too.

It was funny though - a few people commented on the "twins". I guess they thought Jo was the mom of both. I'm sure they didn't think it was me!