Spring Break in Pocatello

We haven't done anything fun for SO LONG! Landon is putting in huge hours teaching drivers' ed., so we couldn't leave town for spring break. We decided to do a priceline deal for a 2.5 star hotel in Pocatello for $50, and had a really fun 24 hour vacation. We left town around 2:30 Friday afternoon, and spent the afternoon shopping in Pocatello. We went to Ross and found 2 cute dresses and a new swimsuit for Emma. We went to the Pineridge mall and found a cute dress for Lauren and a new shirt for me at JC Penney. Next, we went to Walmart and found a cute swimsuit for Lauren and Emma bought herself a camera with money she's been saving. Finally, we went to our hotel and spent a few hours swimming in the hotel pool (we had it all to ourselves!). After swimming, Landon and I scouted out a NY-style pizza place near ISU and brought a pizza and some salads back to the hotel room for dinner. So good! We know that Pocatello and Idaho Falls have good pizza, now if only Rexburg could get some good pizza in town! We'd be so happy!

This is how "comfortable" Emma is riding in the backseat of the truck these days. Poor kid! I held the camera over my head and told Lauren to get in line of the lens.You can tell it was a special day because we NEVER buy a pretzel in the mall! When you can buy a pretzel at Sam's Club for $1 why would we spend $3 on a pretzel in the mall? We splurged on pretzels for a snack at the Pineridge Mall. Livin' large.This is a family portrait at the hotel pool...I had a pedicure on Thursday just for this occasion. After sleeping about 12 hours (yay for vacation!), and complaints of at least 2 of us snoring like wild animals (Lauren and me), we had a good breakfast at the hotel, and a couple more hours of swimming. Then we went to Outer Limits Fun Zone, which is a mini-golf/laser tag/indoor playground/arcade place in Pocatello that Lauren had researched and begged us to visit while we were in town. It was really fun, actually. We played "mini-bowling" which is like real bowling, but you use little 5 pound balls and you get tickets for spares and strikes.
Lauren, Emma and Landon played video games and tried to earn tickets. I'm not a big video game fan, so I was happy to hold everyone's tickets and cheer everyone on. The funnest part of the whole experience was paying for the girls to ride a roller-coaster "simulator." We thought it would shake and jiggle and maybe tip forward to make the girls feel like they were really riding a roller-coaster, but it was so much MORE! They wore shoulder harnesses and seat belts, then the attendant closed and locked the girls into a "pod." While Landon and I stood outside and watched, the pod started moving up in the air and twisting and turning upside down and shaking back and forth just like the girls were in a blender. We were so freaked out! We were convinced the girls were being traumatized and were never going to be the same when they came out. Well, as soon as the pod stopped and opened, both girls were grinning ear to ear and saying that was the funnest ride they've ever been on! They LOVED every minute of it. It was such a relief, and we were so glad they liked it. I think we're going to have a hard time passing through Pocatello without stopping to go on that ride in the future. I took video of it so they could see what was happening to them from the outside. It's dark and kind of hard to see, but you get the idea.

We went to Red Lobster for lunch with a gift card my parents had given us for Christmas. Lauren ordered a petite lobster tail from the kid's menu, which I thought was kind of funny. She loved it. After lunch, we drove home stopping at the Army Surplus store south of Idaho Falls, for Landon's benefit. We were gone about 26 hours, but it was actually one of our nicer vacations! I guess the longer we go between fun stuff, the more we appreciate our time together!