South Fork river/camping trip...

This was for sure one of the highlights of our summer, if not our whole year.
Ever since we got the boat over 4 years ago we have looked forward to the time when we could float the river with the boys and camp over night, and this year finally seemed like the right time. The boys were finally old enough that we thought they could do it and no one would push anyone else out of the boat ;)
It was SO much fun!!!    We drove up to Idaho on Friday pulling the boat loaded with all of our camping and fishing supplies (in limited amounts so that everything would fit in the boat!). Credit to Lars for organizing it so well...

We parked in the parking lot and had a shuttle arranged to move the truck so that it would be at the take out spot when we got there.
Waiting for Lars to park the truck...

I can't remember what time we put in the water, but we floated and fished all day that day, then pulled over at one of the camp spots late that afternoon. Pictures from that first part of the float...

 So funny at one point Gunnar casted his line out and happened to hook Lars' hat and pull it off his head and fling it into the water...then thinking it was gone, Gunnar started reeling his line in and realized it was still hooked on. We all laughed so hard, and I love the look on Gunnar's face :)

Our friend/neighbor BJ and his cute daughter Kenna, along with BJ's friend Ben came along in their boat and camped one night.

That was fun to have them there especially to have a friend there for the boys.

After we stopped we got our camp all set up...we brought two small tents.

Then made hotdogs etc... and fished a little from the bank, sat around the fire and went to bed...Ashton slept in the one tent with me that night and Gunnar in with Lars.

 We had actually only planned to camp the one night, but decided the next morning when we got up that it would be so fun to stay another night and really with tent camping and all the work it took to get ready for this trip, it's so much more worth it to do two nights.
So BJ, Kenna and Ben pulled their camp down and got all loaded up to go and took off by about 10:30 while we stayed and fished a lot more...

 The boys each caught their first fish ever on a dry fly on a fly rod!
And were having so much fun fishing :)

 They had also brought bb guns and Ashton's 22, so we went for a little walk and let them shoot those for awhile and just had fun hanging out at camp that day.

 It rained off and on that day, but never too bad...

Ashton loved using his Jet Boil to make cup o noodles for him and Gunnar :)

 Luckily we had brought just about enough extra food and snacks, even though we had to do hot dogs again that night! We switched sleeping arrangements that second night and Gunnar came and slept with me while Ashton slept in the tent with Lars, then got up and had breakfast and started tearing down our camp and loading up.
 That took awhile, but once we got everything back in the boat, we got on the river again and floated all day, stopping off to fish once in awhile.
At one spot, you could look out and see tons of fish coming up to eat, so we put the anchor down and stopped there for a long time thinking the boys would have a chance to catch a lot of fish, but we could NOT figure out what the fish were feeding on and only ended up catching 2 or 3.

  Crazy to see so many fish coming up and not be able to catch them!
I do love this picture of Ashton netting one of Lars' :)

That was one of the only times of the trip that the boys kind of started to fight in the boat because they were bored!
Eventually we got back in and floated the rest of the way and at one point I started to catch a lot of fish and Gunnar was loving netting them for me. He was so cute jumping up with the net anytime he could tell I had hooked one. It was such a beautiful day and so much fun!
I caught a couple of really nice browns...

 We eventually got to the take out, but not until after 5:00 that day and after we cleaned out the boat and got on the road we still had a 3 hour drive to get home!
Everyone was starving so we stopped off at Taco Bell and got back on the road and got home late.
Best memories made those few days...so glad we went and we already can't wait to do it again! Another activity that made me so grateful for this little family of four that I love so much :)


Our family of 4...

Even though I always wanted more kids, lots of times lately I feel like our family of 4 is the perfect number.

That's what I kept thinking the night Lars came home with this for us to ride around in for the night...

He had rented it for him and his work guys for the day as a "Team Building" activity. They took it and drove clear up Providence canyon and went skeet shooting etc...

Then he didn't have to have it back till 10 pm, so we got to play in it for a few hours and it was SO fun!!

We packed a dinner and drove up Providence canyon and drove around for awhile then got out and ate and looked at the view, then drove around some more (even let Ashton try!)

 And then we eventually came home.

Such a fun night!

Floating the Narrows...

I can't even remember when this was now exactly...but we decided to get tubes and float down the river in Idaho last month.

We have always heard about people doing it, but never did it. And I don't know if we would have wanted to if Gunnar was much younger or smaller!

In fact when we got there, one of the tubes just blew up and it ended up kind of being a blessing in disguise because he had to ride with Lars. I don't think he could have done it by himself. It was pretty swift and deep in parts. Of course we had life jackets on, but it was still a little crazy at times. But lots of fun and we are going to go do it again this week I think. Except with different tubes that have handles and bottoms in them!
I sold these for just about as much as we paid for them!

Our next door neighbors Dana and Trevor and their boys came with us...