Who says you can't float the river twice in one month?

Justin was able to take his Teachers (and our nephew Gage got to come along too) up for a week to Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. Since there was a river run involved I of course went too! I opted not to camp with them though and spent the week instead as my brothers slave repainting his kitchen cabinets. Juli has always wanted to go river rafting and was able to come with me, it was so much fun to be able to watch her and Gage get to experience the river. I'm pretty sure she's hooked now too!

Since we didn't have any extra people watching I took pictures the first run and rode the second (so no pictures from that one). I was so nervous watching them come through because although Justin has been down the river so many times and has learned from the best it was his first time guiding the raft completely on his own. He did great though...for the most part. Coming into Kahuna it slipped his mind to tell those in front to "duck and tuck" so they hit the wall of water straight on, went flying back and took out the rest of the raft! I was worried about some of the boys because I knew they were a little nervous but they all agreed after that falling out was the funnest part!

I went on the second run and although it started to rain on us it was still so much fun. All the rapids were PERFECT, probably the best I've been on. It's a tradition that at the flat part of the river (Gauging straights) someone does a backflip off the raft as a sacrifice to Kahuna, otherwise you will flip your raft there. None of the boys would step up (something about the water being ice cold?) so I made the sacrifice. Probably not the best form but it did the job. When we went into Kahuna it seemed like we were in there forever and our raft got a little crooked, for a second I thought we were going to flip but I think the backflip did the trick and we came out the other side only losing one boy in the process. It was such a great day! Thanks Randy for taking us again and Heidi for letting me borrow your camera so I could get some good shots. The boys watched all the pictures at mutual last night and loved them!

Me and Juli

Justin's raft hitting Kahuna. You can't really tell from this picture since I was far away but it was HUGE (8 feet-ish?)!

When their raft came up I thought they had lost everyone since it was completely flat (there is actually one guy laying in the raft). Justin dumped everyone but one (including himself) and Randy lost two.

Randy's raft going through Kahuna.

Lunchcounter (below)

A close up of Gage's face...priceless!

Justin's raft in Lunchcounter.

Everyone survived and had a blast!!

Cabin, Canyon and Deer.

The Harris's got a cabin in Flagstaff for a couple days and invited me and my Mom along. Even though we had just gotten back from Utah two days before we couldn't pass up the chance to get out of the heat.

The cabin was huge but this was where most of our time was spent...on the porch reading and playing games! It was great.

Since we were so close we decided to head to the Grand Canyon for the day. I hadn't been since I was little and it was beautiful!

Avery and her squirrel friend...she walked right up to it and pet it!

On the way back from the Grand Canyon we stopped at the deer farm in Williams. We have pictures there when I was about Dellys age. It was so much fun for all of us!

Don't do this....

or you end up like this with a concrete deer crushing your leg. Good idea Mom.

Such a great weekend...thanks for letting us tag along!

Remember that trip down the Snake River when I was 12? That was the greatest.

On our way to the river!

Our first run.

Second run.

Lost another one!

Don't worry, Chassies got his foot!

Hey, where's our boat?

Cold and wet but happy to have made this trip in one piece!

Justin's brother Troy invited us to float the Snake River Friday with his wards youth the Friday after Tommys wedding and since it had been a couple years since we had gone we were so excited! We woke up super early to make the 5 hour drive to WY. For our first trip down we were with four of the kids, two boys in the front, two girls in the middle, me and Justin in the back and our cousin David was our guide. The first 10 minutes of our trip went great...then one of the girls fell out and she was under for about 5-10 seconds, it was so scary! After that the girls were both nervous and every time we hit even a little rapid they were both in the middle of the boat. The boys were pretty much worthless and none of them would paddle to save their lives! Which left me Justin and David doing all the work, which makes for not a very fun ride. The funniest thing ever happened though- coming up to the two biggest rapids, kahuna and lunch counter, Dave had stressed the importance of paddling through them so we can hit them right and not flip the raft. Instead, they decide to put their paddles in the air and yell like they were on a ride at Disneyland. Of course they got off balance and one of them (Chris) fell in. His friend flipped out and started yelling at the top of his lungs "Chriiiiis! Chriiiiiiis! Chris is in the water! Save him! Chris, my friend! Save my friend!! Chris! My friend!" and then he starts jumping across the boat trying to get to him. Maybe you needed to be there but it was hilarious. Finally we made it to the end of the river and all that was left was to get to the boat ramp...sounds easy enough right? Well somehow my side of the raft dipped down a little and both of the kids fell out. So we were trying to get them the rope and back to the boat and missed the ramps. We ended up missing them by about 300 feet and just barely making it to the last place where we could have gotten out. Had to hike up a super steep hill to get out and pull the boat up it too. It was stressful and a mess and I was so glad to be done!

So the second trip down we decided to change it up and had one of Troys friends Teg, me, Justin, Chassie and David guiding again. We were so excited to have such a good raft and it was great until we got to blind canyon (blind because right after it is kahuna and lunch counter that you can't see) we hit just a little rapid but behind it was a pretty good reversal that sucked the side of the boat down us and flipped us all completely out! I was under just a few seconds but long enough to panic a little! So we had to all get back to the boat and get in quickly knowing the big ones were just around the corner. In the process we lost 2 paddles which left it to Teg Justin and David to do all the work the rest of the river and me and Chassie got a free ride.

All in all we had a great time, more eventful than usual but still a ton of fun! Randy always says that one of the best things about the river is all the stories that we have from it. Every time we get together we sit and talk about all the things that have happened and the stories never get old! I'm pretty sure the trips we had this time will come up a few times in the future too. Thanks Troy and Heidi for the invite and Randy for taking us all and David for keeping us alive! Best part is we get to do it all again in a week!

You've been noodled!

Mom and Joey celebrating their solo anniversaries.

This was a fun game- the kids hit Justin with their noodles for about 15 minutes straight.

Hailey, Joslin and Noah with their favorite aunt.

We met Bk in Salt Lake for lunch where he got us reservations at a semi-exclusive resturaunt...the church office cafeteria! It was yummy and pretty cheap too. Afterwards we got to go up to the top of the building and had a great view of Temple Square and Salt Lake. Went and watched the Joseph Smith movie and then had to hurry back to Bks so him and Mom and Joey could make it to the temple open house. Me and Justin got to see Juli and the new house and play with the kids for awhile. Got some take out from a delicious Mexican restaurant for dinner then headed back to Orem to wake up super early to go to the river!

The Levis Action Suit.

The suit in action.

Last night we drove up to Provo for our nephew Tommy's wedding to Jill, it was so good and they have an awesome anniversary- 07/08/09 at 10 am. It was really weird to me though because he was only 11 years old when I met him! Justin rocked the vintage blue Levis action suit, it was a hit. And yes he is the middle child. Tommy and Jill looked great at the reception, they are such a cute couple. The brothers went all out and decorated their car with a gangsta Montoya sticker. It was pretty sweet. After the reception we went to Costa Vida to eat...SO good but I'm still so full I can't go to sleep! Good times.