Visit Grandma, Grandpa, and Cousins in Idaho: Part 1 - Fun at the House and Cabin

I had planned a trip to take the kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa and their cousins in Idaho since last year's reunion in Cancun where they had so much fun playing with cousins they had mostly never met in person.  The week of Independence Day was set as a target.  Of course, the coronavirus hit and threw much of our lives into various stages of chaos, but we were comfortable enough in everyone's safety to continue with our plans as long as we took the proper precautions, so unlike our cancelled Spring Break plans, we decided to continue with this planned vacation.  One of those precautions was wearing masks as much as we could when in public places.  The airline was mandating masks on the flight and the airport was mandating them while inside anyway.  Hard to say if we are smiling in this picture at the airport waiting to go through security or not.

On the plane, the airline didn't sell the middle seats, so the four of us sat in two rows of three seats one in front of the other.  This made it easier to pass things back and forth.  The kids did well watching movies on iPads and Derek fell asleep the last three hours of the 4.5 hour flight which was wonderful.  After landing in Salt Lake City, Utah, we got a rental car and made the three hour trip to Idaho Falls, Idaho where the grandparents live.  Because of the northern latitude, it stays light there until 9 PM, so we had a few hours of daylight and kids that were very excited to see their grandparents after a long day of traveling when we arrived at their house at 7 PM.  Lydia's first order of business was to play "Octopus Grandpa" with Grandpa.  This silly game involves Grandpa wrapping a kid up tightly and tickling them, and she had been wanting to play it with him for a week.

Lydia also discovered the sandbox under the playhouse in the back yard.

They have some fun electric kiddie cars that the kids' cousins have enjoyed.  After a few driving lessons from Grandpa, my kids decided to start racing them around the yard and up the street for a few laps.  Here's Derek the speed demon zooming around on his tractor.

This tricycle was another fun vehicle.  You have to steer using hand levers that took some practice, but the girls learned quickly (Derek's legs were sadly too short to reach the pedals).

Karina really liked zipping down the hill in the backyard in her jeep.

She was a good big sister and took Derek for a ride.

Lydia liked zooming around too.

The next morning, we went to a baptismal service for cousin Miles (I didn't take any pictures there); the kids briefly saw their Idaho cousins, and then we made the trip up to grandparents' cabin in Island Park, just outside of West Yellowstone, Montana.  On the way up, we saw a moose munching on grass on an island in the middle of the Snake River.

As soon as we got to the cabin, the kids were running around exploring before I could take my camera out and capture the excitement.  Derek found stuffed animals and a swing and was very cute giving this stuffed moose a ride in the baby swing.

We went to the cabin to take a trip through Yellowstone National Park (we spent two nights in the cabin and two days in the park).  Because of the number of pictures taken there, Yellowstone will have to wait for the next blog post.  But while at the cabin during downtime, Lydia and Grandma bonded over jigsaw puzzles.

Derek found big rubber boots to wear and stomp around saying "I'm Grandpa" while holding a stuffed bear he found at the cabin.

Derek has been fascinated with pirates lately, and keeps pretending sticks he finds are swords.  Grandpa had some old Trex deck material scraps and said Derek could use them as a sword.  Then Grandpa took a nap and Derek begged me to help him make a sword.  I found two suitable scraps, a drill and a screw, and Derek helped me make his own sword (one of many he ended up using on this trip).

A couple pictures from the deck of the cabin.

The two days we spent at the cabin were cold and rainy (it even snowed on us in Yellowstone at the higher elevations).  We did get a break in the weather and clear skies, so decided to go down to Henry's Lake (a short drive from the cabin) to play.  I tried to teach the kids how to skip rocks on the smooth water of the lake, but the finer points of technique are still escaping them.

Derek enjoyed throwing rocks into the water and finding dandelion fuzz to blow off.

The girls liked scrambling along the rocks on the shoreline of the lake.

Grandpa grabbed his flyrod to try his hand at fishing right from the dock to let the kids have a chance to catch their first fish (he has a lot of experience fishing from his boat on the lake), and he managed to hook a nice cutthroat trout.  Lydia was the most eager to try to catch a fish, so she rushed over to reel it in.

Here she is with Grandpa and her first fish.  She was quite excited about it at the time, but later she declared since she didn't hook the fish, she didn't really catch it.  I have tried to explain that reeling the fish in is just as important, since I have hooked many fish that got away, but all the fish that I have reeled in were successfully "caught".  So far she is not convinced.

Coming up next are our adventures in Yellowstone, but for a teaser - lots of driving, lots of elk, lots of cloudy sky, and young kids that were underwhelmed even if I thought it was fun to see Yellowstone again.