weekend in the mountains

We had a gorgeous weekend. The Jones family headed into the mountains of Idaho for yet another weekend get-away to Melcher Mansion. That place never disappoints. It's not often that we get to spend so much time snacking, chatting, and soaking up the sunshine all in just a couple of days, but at Melcher it seems to always happen. We also got to celebrate Bonnie and Kristi's birthdays while we were there....(if you see them, make sure to tell them Happy Birthday tomorrow!!) What a gorgeous place! (in this picture, everyone kept saying "Cheeeeeese", and Gracie obviously thought they were trying to get her attention.)It's weird to think that last time we were four-wheeling at Melcher, Gracie was bouncing around in my belly. (I was pretty nervous about the bouncing, so Jared dropped me off...) This year I made up for it. The terrain to the top of the mountain isn't for beginners. It's steep, rocky and a little bit scary...but so fun. I only thought I was going to roll about 3 times...literally jumping off of the four wheeler, leaving Jared to figure out the mess I got it in. Get a load of how pretty this place was...
We couldn't quite make it to the top of the mountain as planned, due to a snow bank (that Jared flipped some cookies in), but we did make it most of the way up. The view was amazing. On our way up Jared was in front of me...all of the sudden he does this funny little dance while standing up on his four-wheeler. He is flailing his arms around, shaking his hips. Then he starts hitting himself and fanning his shirt like crazy. Apparently, a hornet flew into his shirt and stung him four times while he was driving!! If it were me that had gotten stung, I would have definitely sulked about it, turned right around and went home to ice it :) but he just laughed and kept going. He's pretty much a macho man.

***(I took a half-naked picture of his stomach to show the stings, but couldn't get it approved by Mr. Jones for blog publication...:) ) We had such a fun time....

Before we headed up the mountain we parked at the base of it and waited for Jared's parents to open the gate. In the meantime, Jared gets this idea of taking Gracie's picture in the middle of the road (which was definitely not busy whatsoever. We saw maybe 2 cars in 30 minutes...) . He got the idea from her headband, since it matched the yellow lines perfectly. Jared has such a good eye for photo op's.
Shouldn't the caption of this picture be something cheesy like, "we are guiding Gracie down the highway of life..." Perfect :)

The rest of our weekend was spent eating out, running, playing tennis (in which I ALMOST beat Jared!! It was 3 to 4. SO close, but he remains undefeated.), hunting for garage sales only to be disappointed, and Gracie got lots of wonderful Grandma/Grandpa time.

We love Idaho.

P.S. another reminder of our blog going private this week! Send me your e-mail if you want an invite!! jarbyjones@gmail.com