Weekend of Family, Food, and Fun

So this post was supposed to be up a month ago, but stupid blogger was having issues with uploading my photos, so that is why it is so late in being put up.

The weekend of September 11th was a busy one, but it was filled with family, friends, and lots of fun.

Thursday 9-11-08 my dad was sworn in as a US Citizen. After 30+ years of living in America, he can officially call himself an American. He would have done it sooner, but when he first came to the states, they wouldn't recognize his Swiss Citizenship if he became an American and he did not want to give that up. Now, they will recognize his duel citizenship and after a long and expensive process, he is a citizen and will be able to vote in his first ever presidential election this November. There were almost 300 people who were sworn in and we were there for about 2 1/2 hours. It was fun to be there, but I'm not gonna lie, it went on a little longer than I wanted and on top of that I really had to use the bathroom. I could have gone when they were handing out the certificates, because that took a long time, but then I would have had to climb over all the people in the row and then climb back over when I was done. They had the ceremony at the Nampa Civic Center and it was not big enough. There were people standing in the aisles and out in the hall.

Heather, Topher and Me, waiting for things to get started.

Topher got a hold of mine and Heather's cameras and decided to play photographer. He was taking pictures of the lights, his legs, himself, Heather, anything he could think of.

Heather was taking a picture of me and Topher, but he wasn't really paying attention.

Try number two

Still waiting. Fortunately he had a toy from Burger King that came with his lunch that we got right before the ceremony.

Finally a US Citizen

The family after the ceremony, no Mike is not grumpy, he just doesn't smile for pictures.

That night we went to Texas Road House for dinner to celebrate and I was so happy. I love love love that restaurant and I'm addicted to their rolls that just melt in your mouth. Not to mention that the stake is wonderful as well. We also stopped by Yogees afterwards for a frozen yogurt treat. I had their yummy coconut yogurt with strawberries and kiwis. YUMMM!

Friday Heather and I had the family over for dinner. I made delicious salmon, roasted potatoes and corn. Everyone loved the salmon, and we even got my nephew Topher to eat some and he enjoyed it as well. After we visited with the family for a little while, they went home and Heather and I had a sleep over with our nephew. We watched the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (not as good as the original) had some candy (don't tell his parents) and stayed up way too late. :) After the first movie got over Topher wanted to play a game, but both of his Aunties were worn out and ready for bed. So we picked out another movie and fell asleep to that.

Saturday we went out to Caldwell for the Indian Creek Festival. This year they had carnival games and rides set up and we had a lot of fun. The boyscouts had set up a rope bridge across the creek for people to walk across, some were successful, others ended up a little wet. My dad and Heather decided that they wanted to go across so they gave Me and Annie all their valuables and went to wait in line. The line was taking forever, so we decided that we would walk around a little while we waited for them to cross. We checked out the car show and saw some really neat cars, then headed over to the carnival games. I let Topher play one game and then we were headed to the lemonade stand for a drink when Heather called and said they were getting ready to cross. So we raced back over to the bridge to watch and take some pictures. I'm proud to say that they both made it across the bridge without falling in. We hit the carnival games again and Topher and I had a water race. I wasn't really thinking about letting him win the game, way to go Auntie Heidi. I did however, let him have the prize. Annie played some basketball, but didn't have any luck and Topher tried to knock down the milk jugs with a baseball. He did a good job, but in order to win a prize you had to get all 3 down at one time and he only got 2. That's when Grossmami stepped in and said that carnival games were a waste of money and that we weren't playing anymore. We walked around some more of the booths and went over to the old train station where they have the water fountain. Heather tried to convince Topher to run through with her, going around the water so they wouldn't get wet. She finally got him to go with her, but then he had a little melt down because the bottom of his pants got wet. Then we headed over to the bouncy toys and Topher had a great time running through the obstacle course one. My mom also bought a marshmallow shooter for Topher and he had a blast playing with that.

Waiting for Auntie Heather and Gross Papi to cross the rope bridge

Some of the cars lined up on the street

Neither one of them fell in

Gotta love the carnival games

I should have let him win, at least I gave him the prize

Annie shooting some hoops

Auntie Heather trying to get Topher to run through the fountain with her

Playing in the army cars

He had a blast playing on this

Playin with his marshmallow shooter

After all the fun in the sun at the Indian Creek Festival, we went to my mom's house for dinner with family and friends. My brother blessed my mom's house and we had delicious burgers, salads, and lemonade. It was a great weekend, and we all had a good time getting to spend some quality time together.