Bear Lake with the Bells

Jan (Bell) Rasmussen called before we left on our get-away to Twin and asked if we wanted to meet up with them at Bear Lake.  All of Ricks family has a family reunion every year and they were having it at Bear Lake starting Sunday the 6th.  Since it isn't too far for us to drive (about 1hr & a half) we were excited to have something fun to do!  Pacificorp owns a house on the North Shore and so we decided to stay in it for one night.

We left Sunday after church and went to the house the Bells were renting, had dinner and family home evening with them then went and stayed at the Company house.

Saturday morning we met up with everyone at the lake, the water was COLD but the kids had a blast!

We stayed until noon, grabbed our traditional bear lake raspberry shake & burger from LaBeaus then had to head to Logan to get the windshield on the car replaced.  While it was getting fixed we did a little shopping then headed for home when it was done.

After an extended weekend with two fun trips we were happy to be home and it took me a few days to get caught up on the laundry!

4th of July Idaho getaway

LeGrand had several days off for the 4th of July so we decided to do some exploring in Idaho.  We have lived here almost 3 years and have never really 'checked the place out' :)

We left on Thursday July 3rd and headed north to Craters of the Moon National Park, on the way we got pelted by a huge rock and left a huge crack in the windshield.

We really had a fun time checking out Craters of the Moon.  So many cool things to see and the kids loved it, after a couple of hours we were kinda done with the heat though :)

We climbed the mountain of Lava Rock

Checked out the caves created by the flowing lava under the earth

Looked at the cool spatters that are still standing

Then we headed down to Twin Falls.  Driving into town over the huge bridge that runs over the snake river is so beautiful.
We went to Shoshone Falls, which is known as the Niagara of the west, it was amazing!

Then we had some yummy Thai food and headed to the motel for a swim before bed.

On the 4th we got up, had breakfast at the motel then went to the little town of Buhl for a parade.  We were about 30 minutes early for the parade and they had all streets going into town blocked off, we thought it was funny.  We snuck our way through and found parking just off main street.

They had a fun fly over with old-time air planes to begin the parade.

Then came the parade, over an hour of horses, atv's, business advertisments, cheerleaders and other randomness ;)

After the parade we went back into Twin grabbed lunch then were headed back to the motel when we saw some people preparing to base jump off the bridge so we pulled over quickly and watched them.

This bridge is one of the only bridges where base jumping is still legal, it was crazy.

Then we went back to the motel and LeGrand took Laex & Loa swimming while Lytzi & I had a much needed nap.

Then we headed out and had a hard time finding dinner because so many places where closed!  Did a little shopping and then headed to CSI (College of Southern Idaho) for the firework show, it was a good one!  Then back to motel to bed!

On the 5th we had breakfast then headed to pocatello, we had to do grocery shopping on our way home.  Got all of our groceries and go home around 5 pm.  The kids had a fun time, they kept saying thanks mom and dad for taking us on this trip & letting us stay in a motel :)