Kissing Booth

On my last Cider Bend blog post, I left you hanging with the kissing booth. I'm happy to report that it was a huge success! We had 15 groups come by with a total of between 70-75 people. Clover and Willow were rock stars! They seriously did so good! We even had a homeschool group of about 25 people come by, and the donkeys did fantastic. By the end, I could just unclip the rope, and they would just walk right up for smooches. They loved all the visitors, attention, and carrots. It was so fun for me to see how teachable they are, and how fast they catch on to things. They got better and better each week. I loved everything about it!

Here are some pictures of our visitors. There are a few groups I didn't get pictures from, but most of the groups are represented here. 

Ashley brought her girls over as a practice for Clover and Willow. The booth wasn't even finished being set up,  so I was nervous about how it would go. The donkeys did so great! It made me excited to see what a little bit of practice would do. These ended up being some of my favorite pictures.

Clover was still a little uncertain of the booth, but she loved the attention from the girls.

Georgina brought her kids over. I love Ophelia's face in this picture. So cute! 😊

Steph brought Brodee over one evening because he was going to watch our animals while we were out of town. After I showed him all the stuff he would need to do, they did the booth.

Brodee was the first person (aside from me) who did a real donkey kiss by putting the carrot sticking out of his mouth. It worked perfect! The donkeys take the carrot with their lips, so they barely touch the person's face.

Steph got a big smooch too!

Dan brought his darling daughter over to meet the donkeys. She was so sweet with them.

SueAnn brought her cute little grandkids over to see the donkeys. A couple of her daughters came too, so this was our biggest group to this point. There were 7 total. The kids were so well behaved, and the donkeys weren't bothered at all by having lots of people around them.

Sarah came over with her husband and cute little boy. This was my favorite photo shoot of the whole month. Willow was hamming it up, and did such a great job! As you can see, she was gonna kiss people whether they wanted one or not! 😂

This is my favorite picture of the whole thing! I tried to recreate it so many times, but I never got one as good as this.

Oh my gosh, how cute is this?!? This little guy was fearless!

Willow got so good at going into the booth! All the pictures with Sarah's family were my favorite!

Lauryn's family came over, and this was another one of my favorites. Lucy started out not wanting to go near the donkeys because she was scared of them. By the time she left, she was a total donkey wrangler! She would pet them, feed them, and even lead them around the barn. It was very satisfying to see that progression.

💓💓💓

Tiffany and Hannah came over, and Willow was being kind of stand offish. Clover stepped right up, and was a little gem. She did all the kissing just as good as Willow. Yay Clover!

JT brought his family over, and we loved his daughter Abigail. Clover and Willow were big fans of her too.

Clover is turning into a little kissing rock star!

This picture shows how the magic is done. 

Jocie and Anneka came. Anneka was so cute with the donkeys.

Cute little twinners!

We had a Monday night Women's Run here. After we ran laps around the property, we all came inside for donkey kisses. I talk about the donkeys a lot with these ladies, so I'm glad they finally got to meet them. So fun!

I just selected a few individual pictures of the ladies to post on here.

Amanda

Heather

Nora
I love this picture. Willow had just taken a carrot out of her mouth, and she was cracking up. 😂

I got kisses from Willow that night too!

Willow does the majority of the kissing, and Clover stands around looking cute and charming everyone's socks off. It only takes a minute for her to melt your heart. 💗

Madi and Gabe

I love this picture!

Such a fun month of socializing the donkeys! I'm sad to see the kissing booth come down, but I have fun plans for March. Stay tuned....

Sugar Alley

Bailey started the cutest 'at home' bakery! It's called Sugar Alley, and she's been having so much fun with it. She launched it with Valentine's Day cookie kits. They were a huge success! Most of the orders came from south east Idaho, so she enlisted our help. We had a Boise trip planned to visit Nora, so we were able to bring all the cookie kits for this area back with us. Go follow her on Instagram (Sugar Alley). She has some really great reels that have kept me laughing. If you are in the Idaho Falls area, don't hesitate to check out her menu and make an order. Mark and I will be traveling there quite often, and we'd love to bring back a treat for you.

Valentine cookie kits.

These are the orders we brought back with us.

Successful launch!

I had so much fun decorating and delivering my cookies to neighbors. 

They are so good! I can't wait to try other stuff she has on her menu.

February Running

I wasn't sure if I should title this post 'February Running,' or 'February Lack of Running.' Towards the end of the month, I was finally cleared to start some short, easy, runs to see how things felt. 

Wolf Flats:

Wolf Flats is always a good 'go to' winter running spot. The conditions are usually pretty good. I started out with an easy four miles, and Mark kept going to get about 12 miles that day. 

It's good to be back out there!

Is it even a Wolf Flats run if you don't see an eagle?

So many herds of deer.

It was a very cold morning. The temp was sitting around zero, but the 'feels like' was definitely in the negatives. Lots of the river was frozen.

Wolf Flats:

The following weekend, Mark and I did Wolf Flats again. This time Joyce was with us, and since she's an animal magnet, we saw TONS of animals! A moose, hundreds of deer, a fox, wild turkeys, a couple eagles, and lots of trumpeter swans. I pushed my distance a little more this time, and got 10.5 miles. I did a lot of walking, and took it pretty easy, but everything felt pretty good. I can still feel the stress fracture spot when I'm done running, but it isn't painful; just kind of there. Joyce and Mark got 18 miles, so they should both be ready to go for The Pulse in a couple weeks.

It's been a rough winter for the wildlife. They've all had to come pretty low to find food. This moose was just napping with a huge herd of deer.

Tricia-Joyce

Such a pretty area.

Women's Runs:

I've missed going to the Women's Runs, so it was nice to be back!

Cider Bend Valentine Run:

We did a Valentine run at Cider bend! Mark made sure the path was clear for us, and we did a few laps around the property. Afterwards we did pictures with the donkeys at the kissing booth. So fun!

One of the ladies got this picture of the back of the barn all lit up as we were running the path.

Chaos and donkey kisses! I love showing off my cute girls. They hammed it up and had smooches for everyone!

Willow loves having friends over. While the ladies were running, she kept going outside looking for them, wondering why they weren't in playing with her.

The River:

We had a nice run around the river.

Xiaofei's Farewell Run:

Xiaofei is moving to Colorado, so we were going to have her final run with us on Trail Hollow. We made it almost up Sunnyside to the starting point, and the road became too sketchy to continue. We had cars in the group that couldn't make it, and the rest of us were afraid we'd get up there and end up stuck. We had a whole line of cars that had to turn around on Sunnyside and head back down. We ended up doing a very icy run around Hawks Landing and Founders Point. I thought about the crazy conditions we were running on, and then saw that we had 9 ladies there doing it, and I was amazed at how hard core this group of ladies really is. Crazy ice was not gonna stop us from getting in one last run with Xiaofei!

Amanda-Jennifer-Xiaofei-Bobbi-Nora-Steph-Ashley-Cheryl-Tricia

We're sure gonna miss the sassy, spunky, energetic fun she has brought to our running community.

That's it for February. Fingers crossed that March brings a lot more miles out on the trails.