A Trip to the Past....

Okay - Yes, I took soooo many pictures this weekend but these were my 3 fav's!! My kids had a ball on the farm (see below) Thanks to Grandma Vic and Grandpa Lovell for showing us around!!
I don't need to explain. Isn't this amazingly beautiful. The picture of course does not do it justice!
My clean 18 month old! Blake Smith, a boy on Mick's Tigers team, turned 11 on Saturday (Happy Birthday Blake). His parents had brought cupcakes for the team. My kids found the "leftovers" (like 15 extra cupcakes). You know the frosting that they put the dye in??? Well, it was red. Mays had it all over his face, hands and shirt!! But... it did keep him occupied for over 10 minutes!!!

Okay - so we went back to Eric's old "stomping grounds," Idaho Falls, for Mick's baseball tournament this weekend. After calling every hotel in Idaho Falls and realizing it just wasn't going to happen (there was a beer fest and baseball tournament) we called Eric's aunt Martha (his mom's sister) and asked if we could invade her house for the weekend. She gladly accepted and Vic even said she was excited and "looking forward to it." I don't think she realized at the time how destructive the Madsen boys could be!!! We left Thursday evening and arrived late Thursday night. She was ready for us.... Vic and Em and her girls were also coming up and staying with Grandma and Grandpa Lovell!!! We stayed up late visiting and finally went to bed.

We woke up the next morning (some earlier than others) and Macee came down stairs and told us it looked like a buffet upstairs. Martha had to go to work that morning but made sure she had us hooked up with breakfast before she left. There was bread, jam, cereal, bacon... you would think my kids had never had jam. We ate an entire loaf of bread and homemade raspberry jam. We then went up to Grandma and Grandpa Callisters and visited the farm. If you look below it was so fun it needed it's own post.

Mick played at 4 and 6 that day. They got spanked by a Taylorsville team their first game and won their next game. I spent the entire game in the car. Beside the fact it was about 40 degrees outside, the wind was blowing trees over!! Spring in Idaho!!! We went and ate dinner with the fam and Jason and Carrie and their kids!!!

The next morning was an early morning. They had to be back up to IF (we were staying in Blackfoot) by 9 am. Vicki and Emily had offered to keep our little guys until the second game and we were quick to take them up on the offer. We dropped Mick off and went to breakfast with Craig and Jess Smith. We ate at Smitty's pancakes and they had THE BEST blueberry pancakes ever!! The boys won their first game pretty badly!! Mick threw the last couple innings and I think giggled the entire time he was on the bump. He thought he was throwing some nasty stuff. Slow.... but nasty. The ego of a 10 year old! Between games we went to our friend, Joldy Watts, house in Rigby. It was beautiful. We came back, beat another team pretty badly and were done by 4:00. We had planned on going home Saturday night but were having way too much fun with family and friends.

We then decided to go show our kids a few memories from daddy's past. We stop and visited Eric's hold High School. Just a quick note about that. Eric told me that he was so glad when he finally graduated and could retire his Green and Yellow jersey's. He thought they were horrible colors and swore to NEVER wear them again. Kinda ironic he is now with UV (also green and yellow) HEHE!!! We have learned at the Madsen house to "Never say Never!!!" We drove through his old neighborhood and stopped to show the kids the house where he grew up. They were so excited that it was for sale ($129,000) and thought we should by it for a seasonal residence. I don't think they realized it wasn't like St. George and warm year round!!! I also put the Country Corner store in the slide cuz Eric and I have always laughed that there are probably only 2 little Country Corner stores in the entire world. This one by his home and the one in Cleveland only blocks from my old home (the ONLY store in Cleveland). Ohhhhh, it surely was meant to be!!! We then went back to Blackfoot and had a BBQ with Eric's family. Food was GREAT!! Eric and I went into town to have ice cream with Eric's old friend Dave Carter and his cute wife Shelby. It was tons of fun! I have known Dave forever but this was the first time I had met his wife. He did well... she is adorable!! And their little guy, Cash.... I have to say, he is only 2 months older than Murph and like 3 times his size. Eric wished we could just get a little of that size for our boys!!!

The entire weekend was awesome. This was way more than "just another baseball trip" for our family. It really gave Eric the opportunity to show his kids a little about his past (as I tear up). I hope that the kids had as much fun as we did. As you can see from the Farm slideshow below, Mart and Steve's backyard is bigger than a square block in Lehi. We had an entire, HUGE basement to ourselves. I slept with Murph (alone) in this really dark, quiet room in the basement and seriously could have slept until noon each day. It was fun, relaxing and just great! Thanks SO MUCH Mart for having us!!!