Main Salmon River rafting trip

Thursday
I've been so excited for this trip. The opportunity just came up a week ago. I've always wanted to do the rafting trip on the Main Salmon River through the Frank Church Wilderness.
6pm We arrived at Greg Hulets home in Idaho Falls. (The Alpine Club's rafting director).
8:00pm We had the trailer packed with the rafts and all our gear, we had stopped for taco fast food, and finally drove onto the freeway to drive to Corn Creek-which is at the end of the road up from North Fork. (43 miles up from North Fork)
We camped at the campground next to the Corn Creek Boat ramp.
Our party of 7 consisted of Greg Hulet, Mark, and I from Idaho Falls, Lanie Benson from Driggs, Mark and Cheryl Hoza from Bozeman, MT, and Stormy Hulet and Marcie from Utah State in Logan. We took 3 rafts; 2 blue Maravia, and the big yellow club raft.
Mark,and I were in the yellow raft with Lanie Benson as our oarsman.
Friday
The ranger at Corn Creek inspects your gear and gives a lecture on sticking with the Leave No Trace requirements.
12:30pm We finally left Corn Creek Boat ramp and on to our wilderness adventure!
Today we saw a black bear walking beside the river as we floated by, a bald eagle sitting in a tree next to the river,
7pm We finally arrived at our reserved camp site along the river. Which by campsite they mean a flat area on the beautiful white sand beaches to pitch your tents on. I'm not sure you'd be able to figure out which sandy beach was yours without GPS.
Saturday
It seemed like a long, calm day on the river. We had to cover more miles than usual because this is supposed to be a 6 day trip and we opted to do it in 5 days.
Mark and I cooked dinner this evening.
Sunday
We had the most rapids today. It was a fun day on the water.
Monday
This evening a herd of 7 Mountain sheep walked on the mountain just above our camp. We just sat in our camp chairs on the beautiful white sand beach and watched them slowly work their way across the mountain.
This afternoon a bee got tangled in my hair that was loose under a bandana and my wet suit and it stung me on my neck.
10:30pm The night was so beautiful we sat on the beach talking for longer than we had planned. Each night we would sit in our camp chairs in a circle to talk. We never had a campfire since you have to carry out the ashes with you from this wilderness area.
Tuesday
7am Mark and I got up. We provided breakfast this morning. It was cold and breezy this morning.
9:10am the rafts were packed and ready to go. 11 minutes later we pushed off and out on to the river in the sunshine. It was a beautiful morning and the scenery was beautiful. We stopped on a sandy beach for lunch. We passed another group of chuckers. We did several fun rapids and the most exciting was Vinegar Rapids. Then I was practicing rowing. (I kept calling it oaring) and Lanie (our oarsman-he is 62) decided I had improved enough to do the last class 2 rapid. Well we went sideways into the second hole (we only had 3 people on our raft). Well; Lanie got washed out, my backpack, and I lost an oar. It made such an exciting end to our trip.
2:25pm We pulled out of the "River of No Return" on to the boat ramp.
4:00pm We had everything loaded and ready to leave. We started the long drive back to Idaho Falls. The nearest city when you get off the river is Riggins, Idaho. As we drove on the dirt road we came upon a small black bear. We stopped and he was really scared. He very quickly climbed a tree. We took pictures of him, he came down and walked off. Then we stopped to picked black raspberries along the road above the river. We stopped in Weiser and ate at Idaho Pizza Company (we called ahead and ordered).
2:20am We arrived back at our home in Idaho Falls.
It was truely an awesome trip and I'm hoping I'll be able to go again someday.
As for pictures, it's the same old story. I need to find the cord to get the pictures off of my phone. My camera is another story altogether. On day 3 I stepped on a large rock that turned out to be slick and fell into the river. I'm not sure my knee will ever be the same again. We had just gone on a short hike and my camera was in my pocket. It has been drying out for days now. I'm afraid to put the battery back in and see if I destroyed my camera.

Celebrating the Fourth of July at the cabin

We had a great time celebrating the Fourth of July at the cabin in Island Park.

Shaun's Surprise Birthday Party

On April 17th our daughter Amber gave Shaun a huge surprise birthday party at our house. It was a great party. I will post pictures later.

Tommy, Nancy, and Victor came to visit

April 9th and 10th, 2010

I was trilled to have my grandson Tommy, and his parents Nancy and Victor come from Twin Falls to visit me. We had Shaun, Amber, the twins, and Evan over for dinner too. It was a fun evening.

Easter 2010

This Easter was a little different than usual. A heavy, wet blanket of snow fell during the wee hours of the morning on Easter in Salt Lake City. The weather continued to improve, so we waited for the snow to melt until 2pm to have a fun Easter Egg hunt. We were much smaller in numbers this year. The kids hunt had just 3: Trevor, Colter, and Chloe. Trevor found the most money. The young adult hunt had 4: Abby, Brennon, Katie, and Evan. Abby found the most money. Then we had a small old adult hunt with 3: Danny, Pam, and I. It was fun. Pam found the most money. We had a nice dinner cooked by Danny at 5:30pm. We played a few games, and then it was time to go home. I sure did miss all my family members who weren't there. And of course my mom worried me by saying that this was her last Easter. But, we had a fun weekend.

My Birthday and I am not a senior citizen!

My birthday celebration has been spread out, and it sure has helped to face the big dreaded DOUBLE FIVE Birthday. And no, I don't feel any different, and not I'm not a senior citizen!
On March 13th I was visiting Nancy and Victor for the weekend in Twin Falls. Nancy made me a delicious birthday dinner: spinach lasagna. It was nice that I was able to celebrate with them. They gave me a battery operated Dolphin fountain.
On March 30th my visiting teachers delivered 3 beautiful pink roses to my work. Since then I've been getting birthday wishes from all my co-workers too.
Then that evening Amber cooked me another delicious birthday dinner: swedish meatballs, my favorite vegies, and a fantastic cheesecake. Brian and Nele were there too. Mark and Shaun went to bed (they catch the site bus early) and the rest of us played speed scrabble after dinner.
Tonight Mark and I are going to dinner with our friends David and Joni to the Sandpiper Restaurant. They are going to have a tough job to trying to cook a meal as good as my daughters Nancy and Amber did. Joni and I share the same birthday and we are a lot alike.
But my actual birthday day started at midnight when I went to the storage room to look for some easter stuff and found water on the floor. So I spent the next couple hours taking care of that. I beleve the rain gutter outside is clogged with leaves and we had a lot of rain yesterday. So when they tried to call me in early to work, the phone ring did not wake me.
I've received several happy birthday phone calls already, so thanks everyone for helping me through the tough DOUBLE FIVE.

My Florida Trip with the Bengal Dancers

The Bengal Dancers Team flew to Florida on Thursday. My text from Katie was: hey, I’m on the plane to Orlando. It’s nonstop booo haha. (January 14, 9:44am.)
She knew that our plane tickets had 2 stops. That evening I drove from Twin Falls to Pocatello. I was meeting 3 other mom's to drive to Salt Lake City tonight. But, they weren't ready, and it was 11pm by the time we left Pocatello.

JANUARY 15, 2010, Friday
On January 15th I flew to Florida with 3 other mom's and a 16 month old girl. (the daughter of the youngest Bengal dancer). We left our hotel room at 6:30am to leave for the airport. (And we just went to bed at 2:30am). We spent a long exhausting day traveling.
text from Katie: I hope your traveling goes ok today! Let me know how it’s going! We’re gonna go practice and play! (that was thoughtful of Katie)
I was hurrying to the gate for our connecting flight in the Atlanta airport when I received a phone call. “Katie is OK, but she is in an ambulance headed to the hospital.” Her coach explained that she choked on some chicken and couldn’t swallow. As soon as we disconnected I read the text that arrived while my phone was off on my first flight: text from Katie: I can’t swallow I’m choking 2:50pm At first I thought, oh it’s just like Ben, he’s been through it, and then I got al upset. Katie was so far away, in the emergency room, and I was stuck in Atlanta waiting for a late plane. My son Ben talked to me and calmed me down.
text from Katie: Might as well call me Ben Jr., haha
3:24pm By the time my plane landed in Orlando, Katie’s coach Hilliary said the procedure was done, and she was just waiting for Katie to wake up. They put Katie out and removed the piece of chicken and stretched her throat from a 12 to a 15. (the normal size is 20) I tried to decide if I should take a taxi to the hospital. But I ended up traveling with our group to the hotel, and taking forever to get checked in to our room, and walking all over the place. I kept in contact with Coach Hilliary and Katie at the hospital. Afterwards the hospital did another x-ray of Katie, and then they wanted to see if she could swallow soft food. They finally arrived back at the hotel around 8pm and the team was practicing out in the parking lot. Katie attempted to join them, but she was still unsteady and her coach made her sit down. By the time I saw Katie we were finally in the cafeteria getting something to eat. What a relief to see my beautiful daughter Katie coming towards me. She ate 2 bowls of ice cream for dinner. This was a stressful day.
(I left my camera cord in Twin Falls,so I will post pictures later.)

My January vacation-Babysitting

I traveled to Twin Falls late Sunday evening on January 10th.
pictures will be added later

New Year

I traveled to Salt Lake City to spend New Years Eve at my mom's house.

Christmas 2009

I'm really behind on my blog, so I'm trying to catch up.
Christmas Eve, I cooked for hours to make a nice Christmas Dinner. Amber and Shaun and the babies, Evan and Katie were supposed to be at our house for Christmas Eve for dinner and to play games. But, Amber and Shaun didn't come at 4:00pm when they said they would, and then they didn't have the twins. Just as we were finishing opening gifts, the twins got dropped off by Amber's mom. They spent about 15 minutes gobbling down dinner and took off for a church service. And that was our Christmas celebration with our kids. Pretty short. We were supposed to play games after their church service, but they called and said they wanted to tile their bathroom instead.

My first visit with my new grandson Tommy

December 18, 2009
When I got back from Oklahoma a little after 1pm, I repacked my bags and left for Twin Falls about 2 hours later. Amber made dinner for Nancy and Victor, so I stopped to pick that up.