Shutting Down Lava Hot Springs (and more fun)

Thursday August 2, 2018

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY BENNY!

There is joy in this boy!

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Our family was starting to dwindle by Thursday morning. Due to work Jake had to leave Wednesday evening and Cody, Alisa and kiddos left at 2:00 a.m. Thursday morning to fly east for a show. The rest of us continued to have tons of fun.

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We arrived at Lava Hot Springs early enough to be the first ones in line for tickets. Ten minutes after the pool opens, while we are still trying to put up our canopy and screen room, an announcement goes out for everyone to get out of the water and for all lifeguards to be on the look out for a little 5 yr., old boy in a blue Spiderman swimsuit who answers to Gabriel. Hillary was a near basket case anyway with her boys in such close proximity to so much water, and with Gabe missing she was close to frantic and near tears.
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(Zman and Izzy chill with some fruit while the grown-ups look for Gabe)

Within minutes our missing munchkin was found going down the tall twisty slides. After he was duly lectured on staying with his buddy and always letting a grown up know where he is, then having to sit out for 15 minutes while watching everyone else have fun, he and grandma went to the Kiddie pool to join in the fun there.

The natural hot springs make these pools nice a warm. The kiddie pool was not only a favorite of the 5 and under set, some of the older kids loved it too. 

FYI - J.J. is a fish. He loves the water. Go figure. 

Everyone over 42" tall went down the slides. Here Grandpa and I take our turns on the speed slides.

Some of the family liked the thrill of the platform jumps. Here Cami and Jacob perform a tandum jump from the top platform with synchronized kicks. (Cami's legs kept kicking on the way down.) 

The judges give it a Score of 8.4!
!!!!

Jacob and Ransom took several turns off of the lower platforms.

It was good to have the canopy and screen rooms where we could rest from all of our hard play. Emily and Annabelle were swimming buddies for part of the day.

Reagan just crashed for about 45 minutes. She was plum tuckered out!

The Portneuf River runs right through Lava Hot Springs, so we rented some tubes and took all of the kids floating down the river. 

We rented several different size rafts and took turns riding the river. When they closed the pool for 2 hours because of rain, we just took all the kids to the river park and tubed the river and mini rapids over and over.

Everyone had a blast!

We found a beautiful hidden park behind the hot springs and the river. The little boys loved exploring this hidden garden. My camera died early on or I would have taken a lot more pictures of the day. Thank you Cami for letting me use some of your photos.

After spending the entire day at the river we were nearly exhausted when we got home after 7:00 p.m. I will say that everyone slept well that night. 

Picture Day and Pinewood Derby

Racing Reunion Fun

Wednesday August 1, 2018

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Today Cami and Jacob got up and made bacon and eggs for everyone. Except for Cali (and of course Skye and Ryan who couldn't make it) we all stayed at Jesse and Kelly's. Cami and Jacob stayed in Jesse and Kelly's travel trailer and Hillary and Jake stayed in a trailer Jesse and Kelly had borrowed from a friend. Shiloh and Jason's kids stayed in their Pop up trailer camper and on any spare couches and floor space they could find in the house while the rest of us stayed in the spare bedrooms. It was so nice to all be so close but have our own spaces.

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After breakfast we took some family photos. We missed Skye, Ryan and sweet baby Avery, but if you look closely you can see them in the photo Reagan and Annabelle are holding.

The whole gang. It's hard to get all 37 of us looking at the camera at the same time. We came pretty close.

Twenty five of our 26 grandchildren. 

Miss Isabelle was not happy, but the rest did quite well.

A few family photos..

The two who started this whole thing. 

Yes, it's all our fault. ( and we love it!)

Cali, Gideon and Parker

Shiloh and Jason

Front row: Maggie, Benny, Micah, Adam

Second row: Emily, Preston, Shiloh, Lydia

Back Row: Jonas, Jason and Adrianna

Cami and Jacob with Lily, Ransom, Gage, Marshall Doc and Isabelle.

Kelly, Jesse Kay, Tyree and Clancy

Annabelle and Reagan with photo of  Skye, Ryan and baby Avery.

Hillary, Jake, Gabriel, Jethro, Ezra and Slippers

Cody, Alisa, Rachel and Ross

  

The three Darryls.

 Darryl Scott Cunningham 

with his son Darryl Cody Cunningham

holding grandson Darryl Ross Cunningham

While Shiloh and Cami went shopping for dinner which was going to be "Concession Stand Foods", some of the family took over the craft room to work on Pinewood Derby cars... 

Ezra concentrates on sanding his car.

at lunch time Jake, Hillary and I took 15 of the grandchildren to the Idaho Potato Museum in Downtown Blackfoot.

 It was actually quite a fun museum, and we all learned new things about growing and processing potatoes.

What are they looking at?

Mr. and Mrs. Spud and baby Potato talking about being in the "Spud Cellar".

Potato sack fashions.

Potato super heroes and a film on where French Fries come from fascinated the boys.

Lot's and lot's of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head toys to play with.

The old farm equipment and new computer interactive games and displays to keep you busy.

We had a hard time getting them out of this room. We finally bribed them with French Fries.
In the afternoon the kids played games in the yard, made Finger Doodles in the craft room and ate more Popsicles.

Finally, after a delicious dinner we had our own
Cunningham Family Pinewood Derby.

We raced in 3 categories: 

Children ages 0-5

Big kids ages 6 - 12

and grown ups ages 13 and over. 

  Above Izzy is anxiously awaiting her turn to race. 

Below you can see all of the creative cars. 

Cody hand carved my favorite car, Rachel's box of Pink iced donuts with sprinkles.

Adrianna's alligator car and Emily's mouse mobile were carved out of potatoes.

So much creativity. The fastest cars were the Batman cars of Gabriel and Gage.

Reagan and Annabelle's cars might have been faster if we had remembered to put the weight plates underneath them.

Shiloh was our race emcee and in charge of the evening.

We had bags of Popcorn and drinks served by Jason.

Cali hired "The Pinewood Derby" guy and he brought out the track and did a fantastic job. Everyone was so excited.

The timing screen was awesome. The kids loved seeing their names on the screen.

Adrianna's Potato Gator Car. It didn't go fast, but it was cool.

Marshall getting his 3rd place award! 

We misplaced some of the ribbons, so the winners got Reed's Dairy Chocolate milk for 1st place. Everyone agreed it was as good as a medal or ribbon!

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I think these are Cody's 4 cars which he hand carved - 

The Baconator, the Banana Splits mobile, Ross Bus and Rachel's Donut Box.

What a fabulous and busy day we had. 

How do they keep getting into my phone?

This was the first photo I took today when we were all bright eyed and raring to go, just like Izzy.

And the last photo of they day.

Having this much fun sure tires you out.