Our Trip to Island Park

Last week, we took a trip up to Island Park, ID with some friends and, boy, was it a good time! Court & Kevo Allphin planned the trip and we stayed up in her parent's "cabin." I use the term cabin loosely as it was more of a big, beautiful house on the lake. Somehow I didn't get around to taking any pictures inside of us playing games or anything so a few of us wanted to get some pictures of the cabin to document our stay. Many, many thanks to the Garn's for being so incredibly generous and letting us stay there, it was so fun!! Here's a glimpse of what we were privileged to stay in:

Not only were we able to stay in beautiful rooms, but the scenery all around us was breathtakingly gorgeous. I'd never been up to Island Park before, let alone Idaho really, and loved the lake and all the nature around us. Sky and I would take little "off-roading" drives around Island Park while we were up there and found a few spots like the two below. On one of these, we were pulling out of the driveway and a cute, little bear cub came rambling past us down the driveway right next to our car. I guess he wasn't really that little but it was still awesome seeing a bear cub up close!

These next pictures are all just random pictures of us out on the lake. We had a blast boating and just hanging out on the water, even though both Sky and I couldn't really do much due to me being pregnant and Sky because of his knees. We all talked him in to trying out surfing though so these next ones are his attempts at surfing behind the boat. Because he hadn't ever wakeboarded before (dang those knees), he didn't have the most successful surfing attempts but I think he still had fun (maybe)..

Sky before..

Sky during..

Sky after.. :) Love you sweetie!

The kids seemed to really like being on the boat, I think the only thing that bothered them a lot were their lifejackets (and can you blame them?) I guess the sailing along soothed all of them because we had a lot of sleeping kids at various points during our boating outings, like cute, little Ivie..

And cute, little Ashton with his mommy, Court.. (He has gotten so big! I can't even believe it, he is such a little chunker, I love his chubby little cheeks)

Zander (with Brek) fell asleep a few times, too, but this wasn't one of those times. I see Zander all the time and yet I still get amazed at how fast he's growing!! He was so cute and entertaining the whole week, what a cutie :)

Sky and me in all my pregnant glory, gotta love it..

When people would surf behind the boat, the guys would all sit on the back of the boat to weigh it down and give the surfers a bigger wake. We thought it was so funny how close and cuddly they'd all get sitting back there so I had to snap a picture of Sky cuddling up to Chris (Taylee's friend) with Lance next to them and Steve-o surfing.

Ivie LOVED Taylee and loved hanging out with her on the trip, she would sit by her and hang out with her a lot. I'm so glad Tay and Chris came up for a few days, it was so fun hanging out and playing games with them (up for any more Hand & Foot, Tay?)

Me, Brek, Heather, and Court lounging on the boat.

One of my personal favorite activities was tubing. They had this tube called "The Great Big Mable" and it could fit a bunch of people. When the guys would get on, they would play this game called "Rotate" or something and so someone would yell rotate while the boat was going and they'd all be scrambling all over each other to get to another place before they got thrown off, highly entertaining stuff.

One night I decided that I wanted to try the tube so we made sure the boys wouldn't drive very fast (they got up to a whopping 12 mph, yikes! :) and had a fun ride on the tube. After that, all the girls decided that they would only go on the tube if the "pregnant girl" was going because that guaranteed a fun, crazy-free ride. Here's a picture of Brek, me, and Heather riding around, with no hands of course.

On our last boating day, all 5 girls got on the tube and Lance decided that it would be funny to drive in circles for probably 5 minutes straight, it was HILARIOUS! We all couldn't stop laughing as we tried to hang on for dear life (try to imagine 5 minutes straight of centrifugal force working against you). I still laugh when I think about it, it was so fun but we were all wondering when it was going to end and were trying to decide who was going to sacrifice themselves and jump off so he'd stop. Brek lost as she was on the very edge and eventually got flung off, thanks Brek :)

We can't wait for another boating trip when I'm not pregnant, at least I can't so then I can wakeboard and stuff like that.

While we weren't boating, we were either reading ("Breaking Dawn" had come out right before the trip so Court, Heather & I were all trying to get through it between all the activities), napping, or playing lots of fun games. We mostly played card games, our favorites up there being "It Came to Pass" (an extremely fun game that you can buy at Deseret Book) and "Hand & Foot," but we also played other games like the one below. I'm not sure what it's called but it involves an empty pop can and everyone having a rock that they're trying to defend against the pop can that's getting whacked at you with your stick (or club in some instances). Some of us had sore, scratched ankles later but it was well worth it :)

All in all, we had an absolutely fabulous time!! Thanks to everyone who planned, to the Garn's again for letting us go up there, and to everyone who went and made the trip AWESOME!! We love you guys and can't wait to do something like this again!