A Camping Family Reunion

We drove for about 2 and a half hours northward, to Walcott Lake in Idaho for a family reunion with my parents and siblings and all their families. We were almost there when we spotted these ominous, yet rather cool-looking clouds. We were the last ones to arrive. They started a movie, Alice in Wonderland, just after we got there, showing it on the side of Steve's trailer. It was the movie with Johnny Depp. It was a bit intense for some of the little kids.

The next morning Dave and I went on a long bike ride while most everyone was still asleep.

I don't know if this was some kind of an elk farm or just someones pets. You can see the two huge elk just to the right of center.

Ginormous haystacks.

The little white specks in the river are pelicans. There must have been a lot of fish in that river.

Later that day we took a family field trip over to the Twin Falls Temple.

A boy picture.

Then we drove over to Shoshone Falls.

The whole gang, with the exception of dad, nana and billy. (They were eating their lunch in their truck)

We ate lunch at a park near the falls.

From there we drove over to Dierk's Lake. The "youngsta's" wanted to swim.

Andrew wanted me to take a picture of the "ghetto" diving board. It looked like you could get a disease just by standing on it.

The kids did some "fancy" jumping.

Back at camp:

Getting the dutch oven dinner ready:

Playing Bingo:

The next morning we took turns in the paddle boat and the canoe out on Lake Walcott.

It was a wonderful reunion with many great memories and families ties made even stronger.

Reaping what I have sown

I went out to my little garden and picked this today: I made the veggies into this delicious soup and totally enjoyed my healthy lunch.

The only problem was that when it is over 90 degrees outside, soup isn't the best choice for someone my age. It sent me into major hot flashes for the next 30 minutes. I had better stick with salads for now.

Cody's Birthday

Cody's birthday was actually last week but we celebrated it tonight with a cookout in our backyard.

Here We Go Again

Can we say OCD? Yes, we went camping at Washington Lake again this past weekend. Just Dave and I this time. It was sooo relaxing.

Since we threw back all eleven fish that we caught up there, we had pasta with pinenuts and sun dried tomatoes, coconut shrimp and caprese salad for dinner. The next morning for breakfast it was Eggs Benedict.

Our canoe had company down at the lake.

We hiked over to Tail Lake and Shadow Lake.

We passed meadows full of wildflowers.

We also hiked Bald Mountain on Saturday. This mountain ascends over 1200 feet to reach a height of almost 12,000 feet above sea level. This photo is the last of the trees before you come to a different type of environment void of most plants.

At the summit you can see 36 different lakes. Unbelievable!

There were quite a few cairns (piles of rocks) at the summit.

I left my own marker:

Later in the day we took a bikeride to Haystack Lake.

We were almost home when we spotted the rainbow. But we didn't need to go searching for a pot of gold. We already had something better: time together. Cheesy, but true.