The Wind Caves

After almost 10 years of marriage, I one day realized I had never shown Travis the wind caves, so I made sure that we would go and hike them this trip. It's about 2 1/2 miles each way and the second half is down hill, so it seemed like it would be a good one for all the kids too.The whole hiking gang, minus me and Val and Shauna. It was us and all of our kids, Val and her 4, Lana and Aros and their 3 1/2, Melissa, and Shauna and Drew and their kids except for Ang who was at Girls Camp still.

So I MISSED the beautiful fresh air of these mountains! We have not taken our kids truly hiking nearly enough, and that has to change. They did great, even though I think Ammon was exhausted by the end, and it was so much fun.

I wonder if some of the adults were secretly glad to be hiking to a 2 and 4 year old leg pace...

Val's create carrier, since she loaned hers to us...I still feel bad, Val, but Daniel does look very comfy...

Hmmm, it's hard to tell in this picture. This was our first sighting of the cave. Just when the kids were starting to complain and say how tired they were, they got the extra motivation of being able to see the final destination...

Oh, there you can see it...

Rest stop.

Val and Daniel heading up the last hill before lunch.

Everyone is happy after lunch. Food usually helps everything in my house...

Almost there...

Hiking up into the cave

I didn't get any pictures in the cave. We didn't even have flashlights, so we had a flashlight every 4 people or so and I was just trying to keep track of kids and shine lights. They had such a blast, though. I can't believe I have never brought Travis here before!

This is after coming out again, and then Trav checking out the waterfall.

Wildflowers. They were in full bloom and so beautiful!!!

Everyone soaking their feet after getting back to the beginning. Oh my COLD water...

Vacation #2--Idaho/Bear World

My parents still had to work so before some of the gang arrived we did a few things, like visit Bear World...This white elk is incredible!

Cubs playing.

MY cubs...

Feeding the animals.

This wasn't the smallest fawn, there was one that was only FIVE days old!

The rides were enough to be fun for our kids with their ages, and simply enough we didn't have to stay there all day...

Camping on the island at Priest Lake

We started planning this camping trip 7 months ago, and I think there was nervousness on the part of everything involved. For us, it was how to camp by depending on everyone else to provide tents, sleeping bags, and whatever else we may need, and how Micah would do being so close to the water for 4 days (dangerous boy!), and how night times and nap times would be. Everyone else had their own concerns, but the entire Passey family was coming. 16 adults (okay I am not counting the adult grandkids as adults), and 27 grandchildren, and Sarah, the only granchild spouse. So getting that many people and all their camping gear across the lake and everyone having all they need, seemed tricky. But this camping trip was SO much fun! I thought everything went amazingly smooth as far as getting everyone there and set up and back. Micah did awesome with naps (except the one incident, later) and with nighttime, and everyone else did so great too.

There were 2 boats, a jet ski and 2 kayaks. The kids spent hours in the water just playing on the tubes.

Trav's brother Allan, taking some people out to tube...David and Val by their boat.

Trav and Noah kayaking.

Noah and lots of other kids spent lots and lots of time catching frogs and snakes. That was probably their favorite part of the whole camping trip.

Noah and Taylor and their frogs.

Ammon wishing someone would help him catch his own frog.

Trav taking Kaden out on the kayak. He decided Kaden is still a bit young, especially on windy choppy water.

Micah's turn. Oh yes, so this little boy pretends to go down for a nap so nicely. I decided to go on Allan's boat because Noah and Kaden were both tubing. Travis said they were just sitting and talking and his Brother David said "Travis, didn't Angela go on the boat?"..."Yep"...."Then who's watching Micah?". And Micah was just moseying along the shoreline. He climbed right out of the port-a-crib and out of the tent, that we hadn't been zipping up all the way. We are lucky he likes to be around people and didn't go the other direction!

They did all get little rides on the wave runner...

I know this has no place in camping, but it was still fun for the kids. On the last night, David somehow set up a little movie for them to watch.

Ammon, after all the watching and waiting for his turn tubing, finally got it. It was the very last morning and Trav took him out on the wave runner. I sat by him and at first he refused to hold on at all, and then I finally made him hold on, and every time his face got splashed he lifted both hands to cover it and almost flew off.

He had so much fun, though. He was beaming ear to ear.