Hiking Alaska Basin, Fourth of July, and Wade Lake

We've been trying to squeeze in some mini adventures this past month every chance we get! Since we didn't go to Wisconsin the first week of July like we had planned on, we've tried to explore Idaho and the surrounding areas some more. Josh recently got promoted to sergeant at the police department, so his schedule has been a little unpredictable.

The last week of June, we did a new hike that we heard about from a friend called the Alaska Basin Trail. To get there, we drove through Driggs and then continued east into Wyoming a few miles. The trail starts right near the Grand Targhee ski resort. If we would've done the whole thing it would've been about 15 miles, but we just went about two miles in and two miles back out. Here are some pictures of that hike!

Another fun thing we did was float the Henry's Fork of the Snake River down from Warm River to Ashton Reservoir. Me and Avery went in the inflatable canoe and the Josh and Caleb were in a yellow raft we borrowed from his sister, Janell, and then Gabe was in a black inflatable donut. It took from about noon to 3:00 and then we went out to Big Jud's in Ashton afterwards.

Then soon it was Thursday, the Fourth of July. I was pretty excited because Josh had taken off when we had planned to go to Wisconsin. So I thought, "Yay! We will get to spend the fourth with Josh!" (a rare occasion), but then his co-worker, Gary, called and asked if he would like to work for the fireworks show in Idaho Falls and make $600 working from about 1:30-midnight and so then he did that! It's hard because we obviously can use the money for fun things, but it kind of stunk that we didn't have him with us for the 4th of July!

So we ended up going to the parade in the morning in Rexburg (which Josh worked at) and we sat right across from Desert Book by Porter park. Then me and the kids went home for a few hours and relaxed from about noon to 4:00. Then we went to Rigby Lake. It was nice because a lot of people were leaving. We were there until about 6:00 and then we came home, ate, and watched our neighbors light off fireworks. The Milners, the Rolphs, and a couple other families were all sitting in our front yard and Milner's front yard for a couple hours. It was a pretty nice show actually!

The day after the fourth (Friday), Josh had off for the next few days so we were able to go down to Huntsville, Utah and stay at this SUPER nice house some friends of ours had rented. We did this last year too, but they had a better house this year. It was Josh's old mission companion, Chris, and his wife, Holly, and their twin boys who are 16 months. Then there were a couple other families that they had invited. One family, the Johnsons, we knew from last year. They were the only other ones that spent Friday night at the house. The others all left around dinner time to go home.

We spent time on Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon out on the ski boat that Chris had. The boys did a LOT of tubing (Caleb couldn't get enough!) and Josh did some wake surfing. I did some watching from the boat. :) Avery did go tubing one time with Josh and they just went VERY slow.

We came home from Huntsville at about 6pm and got home about 9pm. (It's about a three hour drive) We were all exhausted and a little sunburnt, but it was so much fun.

Here are some pictures of the gorgeous house we stayed in and the fun we had!

The next little mini-adventure we did was a overnight camping trip to Wade Lake. Wade and Cliff Lakes are two lakes that are just barely across the border into Montana and they are the most crystal clear water ever! There's no wake allowed so we bring our inflatable canoe and let the kids paddle around. Caleb also brought his snorkel gear and kept himself entertained for a long time swimming around on the surface looking at crawdads and little fish. Gabe was gone to boy scout camp from July 8th until today (July 13th) so he missed out on this camp trip. Actually, the reason we went was kind of because Caleb was bummed that he wasn't old enough to go so we told him we would go camping instead.

We got to Wade Lake at about 1:00 on Wednesday, July 10th and then we camped in our tent overnight. So yes, I woke up the morning of my 35th birthday on the floor of a tent in the woods of Montana. It was super fancy. lol But honestly it was a really fun day. I love being there because it's just sooo beautiful. The water is like, turquoise blue-green and super clear. Caleb even paddled me around in the canoe for a little while so I could just relax. haha


We left there at about 2:00 on Friday and drove back to Rexburg. Then we had the fun task of doing laundry and unpacking everything. Josh did take me out to dinner at Da Pineapple Grill for my birthday though and Diane (Josh's mom) came over and sat with Caleb and Avery for about an hour and a half.


Here are some pictures of Cliff and Wade Lake!

So that's all the big events happening over the past month! Summer is going by fast and soon we will be back to school! Coming up in the next few weeks, we have Avery's birthday party, a visit to Montana to see Aaron's family, biking the Hiawatha trail, and then, if we have any money left, I would like to take Josh somewhere for our anniversary! It may be out to dinner in Rexburg if we are broke by then! lol We will see how it all pans out!

That's all for now!

End of Year Festivities, Caleb's 11th Birthday, Goldbug Hot Springs

The last month of school is always super busy and this year was no exception! Josh also happened to be gone to a police "training" (more like a fun summer camp) for the last week of school from May 19th - 24th so I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. 

School officially ended on Friday, May 24th. Gabe, however, being in Jr. High actually had a couple of free days to burn because he had good grades and good attendance, so his last day was actually May 22! Caleb and Avery both ended on the 24th at about 11am. I also ended that day as a secretary at Avery's school! On the last day, I played High School Musical's song, "What time is it? Summertime!" over the loudspeaker. Because that's what awesome secretaries do. 

Here are Avery and Caleb's first and last day of school side-by-side comparisons. Gabe didn't get one because he was in his pajamas on the 24th when I took these. 

In the last couple weeks of school there were many field trips and fun activities at each of the kid's schools. 

Avery's first grade class went to the Idaho Falls zoo on May 13th and I tagged along as a chaperone. Caleb's fifth grade class went to a movie and to Bear World. I don't really know what Gabe's class did. They might be too old for field trips! 

Here are some pictures of the field trip with Avery at the zoo:

And then here is her picture with her teacher, Mrs. McCoy, on the last day! She was a great teacher for Avery (Caleb also had her for first grade.)

Caleb had a science fair at school on May 16th. His group chose to do "the glowing, bouncy egg." They soaked an egg in vinegar for a couple of days at the shell dissolved. Then they added highlighter ink to the vinegar so that it would glow when it was held under a UV light. 

Also on May 16th (that was a busy day), Avery celebrated her birthday at school. Her teacher always assigns a day for the kids who have summer birthdays to have their "birthday party" and make them feel special! So on that day Josh and I went in and took donuts for everyone and watched Avery read her "All About Me" book to the class. Here are a couple of pictures from that "birthday" party:

Now here’s something you wouldn't expect! Caleb participated in a ballroom dance class from about March - May at the middle school! It all came about because there was a girl in our neighborhood who wanted to do it, but she didn't have a boy to partner with. Caleb, being the sweet boy he is, stepped up and said he would dance with her. He was a little bit out of his element, but he had a surprising amount of rhythm! You could tell he wasn't super excited about it when you watched him dance, but he actually knew all the steps very well. They did a performance on May 18th and they danced to Grease Lightning for one dance and then Burn, Baby, Burn for the other one. Here is a picture of the whole ballroom team and then of Caleb and his partner, Scout.

Mother's Day was Sunday, May 12 and we went to church as a family. Josh had off so that was nice too. He made me crepes for breakfast and it was just a relaxing day. I think the kids fought more than usual that day, but that always seems to be the case on Mother's Day. I don't know if it's actually that they are naughtier than usual that day or if you just EXPECT them to be really good so therefore they just SEEM worse than usual. Hmmm.... I don't know. But here is a picture I forced them to take with me before we changed out of our church clothes.

Avery also had her end of the year dance recital. Hers was on Thursday, May 23rd so unfortunately Josh missed that one. She danced with Fuzion this year, which is in Sugar City (just north of Rexburg about 5 minutes.) Her class did two dances. The first one was to Spice Girls and she wore a pink, short dress. The second one was to Beauty and the Beast and she wore a dress that looked like Belle. Here are a couple pictures with her and some friends. 

Gabe's soccer team was busy playing games in the month of May and finished up their season on June 8th with a tournament in Rexburg. It was a really fun season for Gabe this year because his coach was really funny and really knew his soccer. Their family moved here from England a couple of years ago. Gabe was also friends with the coach's son, Amos. They had coincidentally gotten to know each other in school this year before soccer even began. Here is a picture of Gabe's team on the last day:

Caleb's 11th birthday was on Thursday, June 6th. We actually celebrated with his friends on Wednesday by taking them to see Detective Pikachu at the movie theater. He invited Benson Cole, Maxwell Sloop, and Cole Ririe. Avery and Gabe and I went along also and Josh was at work. Afterwards, we went over to Dairy Queen and had ice cream cake. Josh was able to come over for that part. Some of his presents included Legos, a basketball, some XBOX games, and shoes. The next day, on his actual birthday, we went to Rigby Lake as a family and then went to Gabe's soccer game in the evening. 

I think I've gotten through most of the highlights! Phew! So since school has been out, some of the activities we have done so far this summer include: Rigby Lake, Rexburg Rapids, hiking at Cress Creek trail, playing at the Burton school playground, bike rides around the neighborhood, going to see "Aladdin" at the drive-in theater, riding the carousel at Porter Park, driving out to Fall Creek Falls for a hike (but it started raining when we got there so we didn't really hike too long), and finally.... going camping at Goldbug Hot Springs!

We keep pretty busy!!! The hike ay Goldbug was sooo amazing. I had seen pictures of this place online and when I realized we only lived about 3 hours away I was like, "Okay... why have we not gone here yet??" So on Monday, June 10th at about noon we packed up our Buick and we drove out to Salmon, ID. Each of us had a backpack to carry and we had decided to backpack in and camp overnight off the trail. A lot of people just drive up there, so the hike, and come back home. But we figured if we were going to drive 3.5 hours there, we might as well stay overnight! It was a really fun experience! There was a little bit of whining as we hiked in, carrying our backpacks with sleeping bags and everything. We had stopped and eaten dinner in Salmon at about 5:00, then drove to the trailhead. That part from about 6:00-7:00 as we hiked the about 1.5 miles in was probably the hardest part. It was also pretty hot at that time so that added to everyone's slight crankiness. But they did pretty good! 

Here is the hike in for the first 45 minutes before the camp site:

In this next one, you can see the mountains in the distance. We must have gotten to our camp spot right after this picture was taken because we could see the view of the mountains from our camp site.

Once we found our perfect camp spot (and it really was a good spot) we set up our tent and changed into our swimsuits. I had a little scare when I stepped on a snake right in our campsite. Josh came over as I was picking it up to move it into the bushes with a stick (because I didn't want it to get stepped on again of course!) and as I picked it up he saw the back end of it and said, "That's a rattlesnake. Put it down. I'm gonna kill it." Then we got to watch as he hacked it into three pieces with his hatchet. It was pretty intense. Mom, if you're reading this, I'm sorry you had to find out I picked up a rattlesnake. But I'm still alive and all is well.

Can you spot the snake?

After the rattlesnake moment and getting our camp all set up, we hiked another 25 minutes or so up to the mountain spot where the hot springs were. The last section of the hike is the most intense as you are climbing in elevation and it gets pretty rocky. 

But once you get up there, you see multiple little hot pools surrounded by rocks and overlooking the canyon with such a gorgeous view. There was one group of college kids there when we arrived, but they left shortly after we got there. So we had the place to ourselves from about 8:00-9:00 as the sun was setting. It was so beautiful! Here are some pictures from the top by the hot springs:

Here we are hiking back down:

Up early the next morning, we hiked up to the springs again! Surprisingly, we weren't the only ones there at 8:00 in the morning! There were already about 5 other people up there! Talk about early morning hikers!

So that was our adventure at Goldbug! I have a few more adventures on my list for Idaho/Montana this summer as well. 

That's all for now!