Happy Fourth of July!

To celebrate the holiday weekend Alison and I went to Flaming Gorge with her family. We left Thursday afternoon with Jake and Meg. Blake and Debbie left earlier in the day with Debbie's parents so camp was all set up by the time we arrived. We unloaded our gear and warmed up some dinner. The day before Debbie smoked some brisket and cooked some mac and cheese. We warmed both dishes up in the dutch ovens. They were both really good. Later in the evening Kristin, Dan, and Skylee arrived. We spent the evening visiting before we all went to bed.

The next morning Blake, Dan, Jake, Kim, and myself all got up early to go fishing. We had heard the fishing was not very good so we tempered our expectations. Once we got our poles set up we had pretty good success. We caught a few fish, and one of the kokanee salmon we caught was pretty big. We cooked that one up as an appetizer on Friday night.

After some lunch, all the kids headed out to the boat for some water sports. We all took turns out on the tube. The water was super nice this year. It felt pretty warm and we all wanted to get in. I went out with Alison a couple of times. Alison also rode around with Meg. They both love going really fast and crazy. My favorite thing was laying at the front of the boat while we were going really fast. Skylee also loved when the boat would go fast. When we weren't going fast she would say, "fast." She really loved the boat. She even went out on the tube for a little while with her dad and got in the water. She would watch everyone on the tube and get really concerned anytime someone fell off the tube into the water. She would say "Oh no!"

After tubing, we rode over to the rope swing. It was a lot different than last year because 15 feet of water have been added to the gorge. The swing was a lot closer to the water. Jake, Meg, and Dan jumped on the swing. I drove the boat and stayed with Kristin, Alison, and Skylee. While we were waiting the boat died and we could not get it to start. It made us really nervous and a couple of guys from another boat ended up coming aboard to help us get it started. On our way back to the marina we had the same problem where the boat shut down and wouldn't restart so we decided to call it a day.

After boating, we drove over to Dutch John to rent rafts to go down the river. By the time we got there, it was too late to go on Friday but we made reservations for Saturday. We also went over to the Flaming Gorge Dam.

We went back to camp. It was fun to hang out with family. Skylee was so much fun. Alison and I would take her on walks to see the antelope around the camp. She loved the antelope. She would even say "amelope." It was great. She is such a curious little person. Friday night Alison and I were in charge of dinner. We made chicken cordon blue in the dutch ovens and cheesy potatoes. They took a while to cook, but once they were done they were both a hit. Jake and Meg grilled pineapple and whipped up some homemade ice cream for dessert.

On Saturday we got up and went fishing again. We caught a mac but we decided to throw it back. We also caught kokanee, but it was so small it was not worth cleaning. The fishing was not as good on Saturday. We headed back to camp a little earlier and made some breakfast. Jake and Meg were very patriotic in honor of the holiday.

We all drove back out to Dutch John to run the river. Right after we rented our rafts a thunderstorm blew in. It rained so hard and got pretty cold. We waited in the parking lot of the dam for the storm to pass. Once we had blue skies we launched our rafts.

Rafting the river was a lot of fun. It was absolutely beautiful. There were a few little rapids along the way. Jake really loved jumping in the river. At one point Bret tackled Jake into the river. Jake also always wanted to jump off the raft onto rocks and then back into the raft. At one point we were behind the raft with Blake, Debbie, Kim, and Gayle. We quietly rode up behind them and rammed them. Debbie jumped so well. It was funny. There was not much flow to the river in places (possibly because of the storm). It ended up taking a couple of hours to run the river. We took on quite a bit of water so we got really excited when we saw a bucket floating along about halfway through our adventure. We had to brave a shallow rocky area to retrieve the bucket, but it was totally worth it once we got the water bailed out of our raft. Skylee had fun at first, but then she got tired. Kristin wrapped her up in Alison's swim dress and she went right to sleep. She slept through the last few miles of our trip. We beat the other raft down the river and we were out of the water by the time they arrived. They were paddling in, but they missed the boat dock. Jake jumped in and hung onto their raft and stopped them a little way down the river. It was pretty funny.

After we got off the river the storms came back. By the time we got back to camp it was windy and a little rainy. Kim and Gayle cooked up some Sanpete turkey and baked beans for dinner. It was great. For dessert, they made a very patriotic ice cream cake.

We got up on Sunday morning, broke camp, and headed home. It was fun to spend the holiday weekend surrounded by family. We had a blast and can hardly wait to do it again next year.