The Maiden Voyage of Sacagawea

We have wanted a canoe for 2 years, ever since we took our first canoe trip together up to Pillar Falls. Last week we finally bought our Guide 147, which we named Sacagawea. We once again traveled up the Snake River to Pillar Falls, but this time we portaged the canoe, our 3 kids and our ridiculous amount of stuff over the rocks so we could continue up the river. This is where we landed with a view down stream.

This is William taking a snack break on a strange pile of rocks on the island we landed on.

This is Brad, the Snake River and Shoshone Falls! We've only ever seen the Falls from above.

We got back in the boat, paddled against fierce wind to Pilar Falls, portaged the canoe and all the stuff (did I mention that Brad carried the boat by himself both times?), once again paddled against the wind, got stopped by the boat Sheriff for a random boat check (we passed) and got back to Centennial Park where we (mostly Brad) got the canoe back on the car. The weather was mostly warm, except for the crazy wind, and it was a perfect 5 hours. The kids were great, although Claire fussed a little and Will was worried about the tippiness of the boat. Overall we had a fabulous time and then enjoyed a late lunch at Golden Corral with all the other white trash!

On our trip we once again saw lots of wild-life. We saw birds that made their homes out of mud on the side of the canyon, White Pelicans, a Blue Heron, a lizard, tiny brightly-colored-banded birds that darted around the boat, and several dead fish. I LOVE IDAHO!

Camping Trip and Other Updates

 We went to the 1000 Springs Resort to do some more car camping. We were right on the Snake River and the kids had a blast eating dinner and breakfast out on the dock. The weather was beautiful so we didn't put up the rain fly so when I woke up to hear coyotes/foxes/wolves howling I got to look up at the beautiful stars. We could also hear the waterfalls on the other side of the river. It was great. Saturday we went on a hike over really rocky terrain. We found the bones of a duck and several other dead animals. We also saw two Osprey circling around their nest only about 30 feet above us! Ruth and Will did a great job not complaining on our hike and loved exploring and throwing rocks into the water. It was a hot day but we had a nice breeze on our walk back to the car. Claire also did great on the hike...she fell asleep! Also, I invested in spray sunscreen and will never go back to normal sunscreen.

In other news, Claire turned one! Here's a picture of her birthday ice cream sundae.

And Ruth is the queen of the flower people

Camping Trip

We went on a super fun camping trip a couple weeks ago. It was our first as a family and we all had tons of fun. We went to City of Rocks and had a great camping spot right by a practice climbing rock. The kids, well all of us, had so much fun climbing these enormous rocks. I'm excited to get more experience so I can help with all the work. Brad made the fire, pitched the tent and cooked all the food. It was a little difficult to deal with Claire too, she wanted to crawl in the sand and touch the fire. The weather was pretty great though, it was chilly and sprinkled a little but the morning was glorious. The worst part was all the crazy wind at night, I seriously thought the tent was going to fly away with all of us in it! But the kids were so tired from all the climbing that they slept through the night no problem. We're all excited for our next outing.

Molar Pregnancy

Sunday June 2nd Brad and I went to the ER so I could get my molar pregnancy removed. Heavy bleeding started the night before and our scheduled D&C was moved up due to the risk of hemorrhage. We found out a few weeks ago that this pregnancy was molar, which means it was basically a cancer and not a baby, we never saw a heartbeat. I still have to go get my blood drawn every couple weeks now to make sure that the cancer continues to go away and not come back; if it does then I will have to get chemo. Also because of the blood tests we are not allowed to get pregnant for about a year. This was all very difficult emotionally and made for a really rough couple weeks. I'm feeling better now, we've been really well taken care of by my mom and our ward. I'm now really looking forward to losing another 20 pounds and having a fun summer with the kids.