Idaho Vacation

Our trip to Idaho was the BEST vacation I think we have ever had!  We experienced so many new things and saw an absolutely beautiful part of the country.  We spent so much time together as a family completely unplugged...no phones, no iPads, no outside connection at all.  It was just the four of us and 16 great friends for an entire week.  I honestly can't think of anything I would want to change about this trip.  It will definitely be one that we remember for a lifetime!

We left very early on Saturday, June 24 to start this amazing adventure.  Once we landed in Boise, we had to drive about 3 hours to get into Riggins, which is where our rafting fun would begin.  

The first night, we all stayed in a Bed and Breakfast, and the rafting company sent vans to pick us up early the next morning.  The kids had a lot of fun at the Bed and Breakfast feeding the animals and making s'mores by the campfire.  

We got our things all packed up into our dry bags and headed for the river.  We had no idea how much fun we were about to have or how many awesome memories we were about to make!  We are so thankful that we had this experience to live on "River Time" and just enjoy God's beauty and each other.  The guides answer when anyone asked what time it was or when we would get to our next camp site was "about a mile...about an hour."  It was awesome to not live on a schedule!  

Day 1 on the River...

Day 2 on the River...

Day 3 on the River...

Final day on the River...

We left the river Wednesday afternoon by speed boat.  The speed boat actually took us back up the river through all the rapids we had just come down, which was pretty awesome.  We were very sad that our rafting and camping time had come to an end, but we were also pretty eager to take a hot shower and have a real bathroom to use (instead of the groover)!!  The next 4 days of our trip would take place at a house in Tamarack Resort.

Thursday's adventure was an ATV ride through the mountains.  This was an incredible experience!  At the top of the mountains, there was still snow on the ground.  The kids actually had a snow ball fight, next to the lake, in June!  It was crazy and so much fun!

We finished the day with dinner and games at the house.

On Friday, we packed a lunch and went for a hike around a beautiful lake in McCall.  We were thankful it was so beautiful, because our short 2 mile hike ended up a 6 mile hike after a wrong turn somewhere.  Ha!

We spent Saturday on Lake Cascade in Tamarack.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and a beautiful lake!  The kids pretty much tubed the entire time we were out there.  It was pretty cool to watch them tube with snow on the mountains in the background.  Once again, we were amazed by the beauty of Idaho!

We got up early on Sunday, so we could make the 2 1/2 hour drive back to Boise in time to have lunch with some old friends before our flight home. We love the Barton family, and we haven't seen them in way too long!  It was so good to catch up, and I really hope that we can see them again very soon!

This was by far my favorite vacation we have ever taken, and we were all kind of sad to see it end.  The bright spot of coming home, though, was seeing our little Messi!  We all missed him like crazy while we were gone.