Independence Day!

July 4, 2014

We started off our 4th of July with a ward breakfast at the neighbors. They served delicious breakfast burritos and pancakes with my favorite topping; strawberries and LOTS of whipped cream! It was a good time!

cutest baby in a lifejacket!

     
     After that we quickly got our stuff together and headed to the lake for some boating, which I hadn't done in 2 years so naturally got zero pictures of me skiing. On the way up we could see smoke and just across the bridge before Spring Shores the hillside was on fire. We crossed over and then parked by Katie and Tyler and the boys to watch the planes and helicopters. There was already 2 BLM crews there working as well. Nate said it made his adrenaline start pumping and a part of him still longs to be out there firefighting with them!

playing on the beach, this boy LOVES water!

     Once we got situated we all did a little boarding or skiing. Nate had to work at 2 and as we were headed back to the beach to pick up all his stuff, our boat died! Brayden and Nate grabbed paddles and started rowing us to shore. We were ready for Nate to climb up the hill to the road and hitchhike back to the car. Dad messed around with things for a while and we finally got going again and Nate made it to work alright.
     The rest of us had a really great time of getting the boat on the trailer (did I mention it's been a while?). We got it on once, pulled out of the water, realized it was wrong, put it back in the water, the trailer then came unhitched from the truck, tried again, and then things were successful. What a day. And of course Spence cried much of the way home. But he sure looked awful cute all day in his lifejacket!

these boys had to have a throw down.

     Once we got home we had a little lunch with cake to celebrate mine and Katie's birthdays. I got some running stuff and my favorite snicker's cake from Albertson's. Heaton then entertained us all with some firecracker tricks and I ran 2 miles. Nate and I have had 3 independence days since we've been together and we have yet to watch fireworks, maybe next year!

these 2 stayed dry by hiding in the boat.

Spence and Oma.

Fishing while yurting.

     I failed to mention our yurt was 20 or so miles outside of Idaho City. On the way up we stopped so Nate and my dad could do some fishing on/at Crooked River (I don't know if that's really where we stopped, but the name Crooked River sounds familiar like it was mentioned at some point), Nate caught one little guy was all so it wasn't very successful.
     On our way home we drove a different way in hopes of stopping along another river for the guys to fish at. I want to say this was along the Salmon River (dad?). We did stop and check out some hot springs, but it was at least 90 degrees out and none of us really thought sitting in 100+ degree water in the hot weather sounded that nice, so off we went again.

me and Spence watching the guys fish.

     A short while later Spencer got awful crabby and my dad knew of some ponds for fishing (and being close to a raging river with a baby kind of scared me) so we stopped there. The fishing was ok. I think Nate and my dad each caught 1 medium sized fish in the hour+ we were there. I saw a muskrat, and Spencer took a nap.

     Then something awesome happened, a fish and game truck pulled up right next to us and dumped 1,000 fish into the pond! To say the fishing got good was an understatement! Every other cast they were catching fish! My dad remarked it felt like cheating, so they challenged themselves by removing the barbs on their hooks. That made things interesting and challenging because as soon as they'd get the fish out of the water it would slide out of their hands and flop along the ground until it made it back in the pond.

     As we were leaving a truck pulled up and a guy asked me how the fishing was. I told him it was excellent and he was like well the fish and game did stock it yesterday. I was like no no, they just stocked it like an hour ago! He was excited about that! Successful fishing all around!
     The boys each kept 4 out of the billion fish they caught and we cooked them up on the grill when we got home and they were very tasty!!

don't be fooled, I didn't catch this.