Next stop- the Jelly Belly Factory

Day 3:
After an exciting day at Great America, we woke up, had a delicious breakfast and were off to the Jelly Belly Factory. For those who don't know, my husband is a total 'sweet' man-[ "there's a double meaning in that"]. To be honest, I thought walking through a candy factory would be boring. I was wrong- yes, it has finally happened. We had so much fun. That picture behind is all made out of Jelly Bellys. They have hundreds of them throughout the tour of Elvis, Joe Dimaggio, Marilyn Monroe, even Stephen Tyler....and more.

Plus, They kept giving out free samples and gave us each a bag of 100 jelly bellys at the end. Even Kyndal got her own, which means that Dad got 2! This cupcake is all jelly bellys too.

Day 4: Next, we went to Reno and stayed the night at the Silver City Casino for only $29. The girls said it looked like a castle. Who am I to rain on their parade? So I told them that it was a castle- which made it that much more exciting. Ethan got so sick of them talking about the beautiful castle and had put a damper on the situation by telling them that if it was a real castle, then there wouldn't be ugly people in it smoking everywhere. What do you say to that? He then turned to me and said, "Mom, why did you take your kids to where people are smoking everywhere?" My reply? "Uh, because it's cheap and to show you how ugly you'll look if you smoke!" The kids have all decided that they will never smoke, glad we got that out of the way. By the way, I lost my shoe in Reno- sounds like a good song, or a bad one. Anyways, it flew off the 4th floor while we were swimming.

After Reno, we went to a wildlife refuge reserve that, to be honest, wasn't worth the money. The kids whined about the walking- it was about a mile around the place, but they did get to see this bear eat oranges and carrots and chicken. Savannah is crying in this picture because she wanted to pet the bear. Yeah, we're mean parents. [Reminds me of that Brian Reagan skit, "Bears love kids with honey on their heads"]

Day 5 and 6: Next, we drove all the way to Boise, which was ugly. We were not impressed at all. However, we were impressed with this ice cream shop. (throughout the trip we stopped at several ice cream shops because Jason is an addict on vacation, kind of like a drunk right out of rehab- I'm Jason's rehab at home, but I promised him he could have as much as he wanted on the trip)

Here's his brownie Sundae, and here's Kyndal- upset that she can't have any.

This is our Amazing friend, Adrienne in Boise. She makes delicious food. Here she is 'helping' the girls make pizzas. They have the cutest little boy whom Savannah fell in love with. They were like two peas in a pod. I loved the way she would call out his name, always needing to know where he was. We are so grateful that they allowed us to bombard them with our crew for 2 days. Can't wait for them to come visit us!