Snake River

Get ready for a long post. In the middle of July we went up to the Snake River with my extended family for our yearly fun on the river. We have been going for at least 15 years and it is one of our favorite things to do! We haven't been up there for the last 2 years though and so we were very excited to get back in to the ice cold water and it did not disappoint!

We got up there Sunday afternoon and spent the rest of the day seeing how dirty we could get, how much bug spray we could go through, and remembering how incredibly good hobo dinners really are. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of pictures because apparently getting out my camera was too much effort for me.

Monday Mandy, Cheri, Nicole, and I went for a nice little run in the morning. It was so nice to spend some time with those girls. Aaron got to go on the big raft for the first run of the day while me and the boys went and played at the river. The water was bone chilling, but watching Gavin you would have never known. He walked in it up to his thighs and acted like it was bath water and I was next to him in it to my ankles and my innards hurt it was so cold! All 3 of my boys were in absolute heaven being at the edge of the river! Throwing rocks, wading in the water, and throwing mud pies; life doesn't get any better! I had a great time watching them, other than the constant worry even though they were wearing life jackets.

Aaron was on kid duty for the second run when it was my turn to go on the big raft. Of course, they all crashed as soon as he had them so he had life easy, but that's okay because I was having a great time being pushed out of the raft by Kyle. :)
Big Kahuna just around the corner.
After the second run we got to do one of my favorite things, raft surfing! You can click on the picture to see it better.

In between the second and third run we did a little kid run where we put the raft in about 1/2 mile or so above the launch spot where it was calm and let the kids go down. They all LOVED it!
Austin, Zack, Grandma
Austin
Austin, Grandma, Zack
Gavin had a blast jumping in the middle of the raft.
Then my mom and Michelle were nice enough to watch our kids so me and Aaron could go on the 4 man with Dave and Shalee for the third run.
Gavin sun-bathing
Austin complaining that the sun is in his eyes- that kid has the most sensitive eyes of anyone I know!
Austin
All of the kids had so much fun running around playing back at the campground. One of the kids favorite things to do was to catch squirrels. The big boys (my cousins Kyle and Trevor) showed them how to prop up boxes or tupperware containers and then they would tie a stick to a rope and when a squirrel would go under it they would pull the stick and catch the squirrel. I was pretty impressed because all of the little kids were able to catch quite a few by themselves. They thought it was the coolest thing ever, but I didn't even think to get a picture of it. (No squirrels were harmed in the capturing of them.)
Tuesday us girls started the morning off with a nice walk on a trail along Palisades Dam. Then Aaron went in the big raft again while me and the boys played at the river. For the second run I went on the 4 man with Mandy, Michelle, and Shalee for the best run of the whole trip! On Big Kahuna we hit it perfect; and me, Shalee, and Mandy got dumped out of the raft by the massive waves. We got back in just in time to hit Rope perfect as well. Along with that and some great conversation we had a blast!
Then we had some more great raft surfing and let the kids go on another run.
We stayed one more night and packed up and left in the morning. Of course we were there just long enough in the morning to have our tent get rained on so we had to come home and deal with wet muddy camping things, but we had a great time and can't wait for next year!