Jones Hole

My parents came down for a visit, but apparently I didn't think to get my camera out.  They ended up staying just the weekend and then took Braden home with them.  That left Dan and I with just two kids so we decided to go do something fun at Jones Hole fish hatchery.  I thought it was great since I've never been to a hatchery before.  The little fish were so stinking cute.  

Since all my boys love any type of fish they enjoyed this little trip too.  

The Rangers that work there are really nice and took a picture for us.  They also warned us that a bear had been sighted in the area and had charged several hikers, so that ended our plans for a nice long hike.  The day was still fun though.

We walked up the path towards the river and did a lot of exploration, but as I said before we had to stay close to the hatchery.  We didn't ever spot a bear though.  Look how clear that water was.

The ranger gave Landon a little explorers pack with all kinds of stuff in it.  Here he's holding the binoculars.  

This net also came in the explorers pack which Dalin found useful in collect all kinds of disgusting creatures.  He found tons of little larvae of some kind or another.

Landon kept a stash of larvae, worms, and water skeeters in his little explorers cup. It had a magnifying glass on top so he could look through and see them.  We carted those poor things all over the trail.  

I didn't get a picture of it, but as we went down the path we came to a small waterfall which had created a bit of a pool.  Dan, being himself and all, decided to go for a swim and see how deep it was.  Yes, in his clothes.  Turns out it was way over his head, so deeper than we thought it would be.  I was standing on top of a huge rock with Landon looking down over him and Dalin so we could see the big fish.  The water was murky so it was hard to see but Dan kept saying "look there by my legs I can feel them swimming past my legs".  I looked and looked and saw nothing, but then a few minutes later saw a huge thing come up and surface and then go back under.  I looked like the biggest fish I had ever seen in a river so small.  We kept looking and pretty soon discovered it wasn't a fish at all.  It was a river otter.  It jumped out of the pool and ran up the opposite side of the mountain.  Dan and I just stared at each other dumb-founded.  He could've literally reached his hand down and touched the thing.  He had felt it brush against his legs several times.  So now Dan can say he's been swimming with an otter.  Hahaha.

Harmony

We enjoy spending time at all the different parks in the summertime.  This park is a fun one for the kids and one I hadn't taken them to because it's a little further from our house, although it's Vernal so nothing is really that far away.  Landon had fun on this little rock climbing structure.  He climbed all over it, under it, around it, and through it.  

Who would think playing on one of these old things would be so fun.  I loved these things when I was a kid.  

The highlight of the park, and the reason it's called Harmony Park.

Dalin loves making music.

Stinker.

Braden also enjoyed making some noise.

Spirit Lake

I had to work 4th of July weekend which was just a huge bummer.  At this point I still worked for Split Mountain Youth Center.  We salvaged some of the long weekend though and headed out to Spirit Lake and camped with the kids.  We were able to stay over two nights, but didn't get there until around 11 pm the first night.  It was so much fun other than the mosquitos were the size of B-52 bombers and there were thousands of them.  It was bad, but we still had a lot of fun.  We just had to wear long sleeves and hoods the whole time to keep them off us.

We enjoyed some good fishing, but didn't catch anything.

It is so beautiful up there.

We spent a lot of time out by the lake which wasn't hard since our camp was right next to it. 

The water was very clear until the kids started throwing rocks of course. 

We spent a lot of time in our camp collecting wood for the fire.  Landon and Braden are taking turns with the hatchet cutting tiny little sticks up for the fire.  It kept them busy for hours.  Of course mom and dad had to be very vigilant in watching those little hands.  They learned quite a bit about safety and had some fun while doing it.

Unfortunately my camera ran out of memory so these are the only pictures I was able to take.  We had a lot of fun and at least we were able to something fun even though I had to work.