City of Rocks

We had the great opportunity to travel to Almo, Idaho (way out in the middle of nowhere) with some of the great people in our Ward to visit a National Preserve called City of Rocks! We stayed in the cutest Western Lodge in Almo.....in a two bedroom suite that was just beautiful. I went expecting a best western type hotel and it was so nice! It was called Almo Outpost Inn. Above is a picture of David and I up on the rocks!

We got this great shot above of the group! Thanks Sandi for the amazing photos!

We were the last to arrive Friday night....we could have been their an hour earlier but we got royally lost....we were on some gravel road for almost 30 miles...but we made it!

Those that had got their earlier in the day, were able to go to the Dufree Hot Springs and then out to dinner at the Outpost Steakhouse.

Saturday Neil and Caroline made a delicious full course breakfast and Doug and Sandi fed us a great lunch in the park of sandwiches! And then to top off the day, we stopped at Maddox for dinner...which how can you ever go wrong with Maddox! It was a great trip....Thanks to the Briggs for putting it together.

My Hawaiian Adventure

Our daughter Amy and her family had the wonderful opportunity to live in Hawaii for 7-8 weeks this summer! I didn't have much time off from work...but I decided to take two days off and turn it into a 5 day weekend and thanks to frequent flyer miles...I was able to go over and stay with them for 4 nights! It was a fast and furious trip (which I almost missed because of a summer storm in SLC and my plane was diverted to Twin Falls) but things worked out and I had a great time with the kids! I didn't get to their little rental house until late Wed. night and so we just went right to bed....but bright and early Thurs. morning we were up and took a walk along their little beach and then headed to the Polynesian Cultural Center...which we could have just walked right across the street but Amy drove me up around the temple and over to some cool beach point!

Amy lived right across the street from the PCC but she and the kids had never dared venture over by themselves...so I was glad that we got to go when I was there!

We spent Friday morning at their little beach...and minus the jelly fish stings that Kenadee and Curtis experienced...we had a great morning! The kids were amazing in the ocean....everyone of them had mastered the art of watching the waves and knowing when to jump. It was so fun to watch them....especially that little Jake.....he would get knocked down and then just get right back up and head right back into the waves!

Friday afternoon, we went to some little city North of Laie and had some amazing snow cones with Ice cream hidden in the center. They were really good and just the perfect thing on a hot Hawaii day! You can tell that the 4 hour difference in time is catching up on that poor grandma above!

Can you guess which beach this is??? If you said turtle beach...your right! Turtles were all over in the water along the shore and this guy (or gal) had crawled up for a little nap in the sun!

Sat. Jon took a much needed day off and we ventured to Sea Life Park which is a very, mini like Sea World! The kids loved the big aquarium and the dolphin show! After sea life park we spent the rest of the evening on the beach watching the Sun go down.

Sunset Beach truly lived up to its name.....it was so fun to watch Jon and the kids just loving the time together and enjoying the ocean waves! Below, you can just see them having fun with the sunset behind them!

Below are a couple of cute pictures I snapped of Amy's family........

The first one was at Sea Life Park waiting for the dolphin show and trying to keep Jake entertained!

The one below...was taken at some State Park above Wakiki..you can see Diamond Head in the background! This was on the way back to the airport!

I am so GLAD that I got to go and see what Amy and her family were experiencing in Hawaii....it was alot of fun!

4th of July Weekend

For the 4th of July weekend...we pulled the 5th wheel and the jeep up to Beaver Mountain and literally camped in the parking lot by the ski hill. While the camp ground wasn't all that great....the beautiful valley of Bear Lake....jeeping...and spending time together was awesome! This was the only camping trip that Kelly got to go on this summer (she works, David plays) and we went with Leon and Janet (David's brother). We had a great time... We hiked about a half mile or so into Bloomington Lake....which is fed by a glacier....it was beautiful!

We spent usually 1/2 day jeeping the beautiful hills of the valley!

Leon and Janet Webster (David's brother and wife)

Above...you can see the glacier feeding Lake Bloomington!

Both David and Leon had gotten 22 pistols for Father's Day and so we would stop along the trail while jeeping and set out some cans and fire away! I had no idea such little guns could make such a loud BANG!

We went up to Minnetonka Cave and had a great little tour! I didn't know that Bear Lake had so much to offer other than boating! It was a fun little cave...it took about an hour or so to hike back into it!

We took our lunch and had a picnic at the entrance to the cave.

Of course....it's never a trip unless something breaks down or someone gets stuck! In the pictures below it's alittle hard to see but Leon was royally stuck. He couldn't go forward or backward. Apparently we had gone up a trail marked for 4 wheelers only and the trail just kept getting narrowier and narrowier...until finally Leon was stuck.

With the trail so narrow....we couldn't get our jeep around to even help pull him out! They had to keep winching to different trees until they could finally push some of the big boulders out of the way...and then we backed down until we could turn around! Jeeping is always an adventure!

Bear Lake is really a beautiful little valley! We had milkshake at LaBeau's...twice! and had a really great weekend!