Camping Above Arrowrock Reservoir

Hello! Well it's about time that I posted the pictures from our camping extravaganza don't you think?

Me too. Here we go! 

We went camping up above Arrowrock Reservoir in Boise last weekend with Jake's friends Rob and Amberlee. It was lots of fun to get out and enjoy being away from the city. 

 These butterflies were all sitting in a little mud puddle by the river. 

It was pretty cool! 

 My dear friend Valerie's dad lent us their canoe for the weekend. We had a heck of a time figuring out the best way to strap it to the trailer but in the end it worked and it was well worth it! 

 A view from the river to camp

 Amberlee got the closest of all of us to the butterflies

 I caught a fish Saturday morning and so we cooked it up to have with our breakfast. 

It was yummy!

 View from the hammock I was sitting it. It was so relaxing! 

 Left side of hammock

 Right side of hammock

 Right above me were the trees and I got this cool looking picture with the sun in the corner :)

 Jake enjoying the hammock

So Saturday afternoon, Jake and I decided to take our fishing poles and head out on the canoe to see if we could catch a few fish for dinner. We were doubtful because it was the middle of the day but headed out anyway. We went upstream from where we were until we couldn't paddle anymore because the current was too strong. Then we pulled out the poles and cast out. To our surprise we caught a bunch of fish! It was awesome! It had been such a long time since I had really caught any fish and so the idea of going fishing was a little.....well let's just say that I wasn't as excited as I have been in the past. But that was remedied when we caught them! Jake and I both caught 4 Rainbow Trout and 4 White Fish. We kept two of each for dinner and let the others go. It was so much fun to be out there by ourselves and actually catching fish! We had a blast and were very proud to show off our spoils to Rob and Amberlee. (They were impressed by the way and went out to see if they could catch anything as well) Here are some pictures of our fish :)

 There's me with my catch! 

 Jake, you have to wait until it's cooked to eat it! 

 Ok i'll just lick it then. 

 Don't they look great!

 This was a big fish! If you know how big Jake's hands are

 it will put this fish into perspective for you haha

 Cleaning the fish. Jake's so good to me. He doesn't make me clean my own :) 

 This fish's mouth wouldn't close after it died. 

It looked pretty funny with it's mouth wide open haha

 More fish cleaning. Yuck

 Turns out, both White Fish we kept were pregnant! 

We had little fishy eggs everywhere. Poor fish :(

 Here's our Rainbow Trout. Jake's is on the left and is a whole head and a half longer than mine!

The next thing we buy when it comes to camping gear is a bigger tent!
We have this little one that Jake takes backpacking with him and it barely fits our twin size air mattress. 

But it's cozy and hey, who doesn't like to cuddle right? haha

Want to know what the worst part of the trip was? You guessed it, Mosquito bites!!! I think I made it out with around 27 bites, Jake had around 20 and Rob had close to 50! I don't remember how many Amberlee had but I know it was a lot! When I got a bite it would get huge and itch like crazy so, thinking ahead, I brought itch cream! It was a life saver let me tell you!

 So I really was enjoying my camera on this trip (as you can tell) and so I started taking pictures of the fire. It looked so cool I thought so I took some more. :)

 Mine and Jake's fish cooking over the fire. Yummy!

Going from left to right, the fish alternate from White Fish to Rainbow Trout. 

The White Fish was good but there were A LOT of bones in it. 

You had to eat slowly and carefully and preferably with your fingers in order to get all of them out. 

The Rainbow was of course, delicious and so we ate good that night!

 Of course, we must have the customary picture of the dirt bike as well :) Jake and I went on a ride Friday night in an attempt to get away from all of the darn mosquitoes and we found a really cool looking resort-ish area that we are thinking about going to sometime.

 Jake brought the hammock that his brother Clay brought back from Brazil for him and this is him in it. We decided that was the best mosquito shield we had so we spent a lot of time in it in the evenings. 

 This was the cute little car that Rob and Amberlee drove up from Utah. you should have seen all of the bumper stickers that she had on that thing! She drove it in high school and Jake says it had a lot more back then! 

Starting from here, these are panoramic pictures going to the right. Now you can see what we saw! 

Last but not least, Jake and I had to get a picture together and so here it is! I love that boy so much and I'm so glad that I found him and talked him into marrying me ;) He has been such a great husband and I couldn't ask for better! 

Thank goodness for_____!

I've decided this will be my "Thank Goodness" post where I post the things I'm glad we have. Here we go :)

Thank goodness for Air Conditioning! It is currently 91 degrees here in good ol' Nampa. 

Not fun.

Thank goodness for shorts! Shorts help keep me cool on days like this.

Thank goodness for my cutie patootie husband that makes me so happy I can barely stand it.

Thank goodness for friends who are lending us their canoes so we can go camping/canoeing this weekend with some friends that are coming up.

Thank goodness for friends that call just to see how you're doing. 

Thank goodness for family that can't wait to see you when you come down (if we can ever get the time off work)

Thank goodness for friends that are there for you no matter what happens.

And.......

Thank goodness for good books that make the day go by super fast! 

On a side note that has absolutely nothing to do with my Thank goodness post, I have been reading a blog lately that is amazing. It's about a woman in Utah who lost her daughter when she was only 4 years old. She tells about her story and everything else. She just recently had another baby girl and it is amazing. If you are feeling bored and have a couple of days to spare, I would hop on over and start at the beginning. It is definately worth your time. 

http://www.hopesmilingbrightly.com/

Amazing! 

p.s. Thanks for following me Michelle! You're my one and only follower! haha :)

Cherry Festival in Emmett

This last weekend we went to the Emmett Cherry Festival. (I didn't get any pictures dang it!) 

It was way fun. There were lots of different booths up and it was very fun to go and look at all the different things. It was also pretty fun to walk around through the carnival. We didn't go on any of the rides because the tickets are so darn expensive and we're trying to pinch pennies but it was still fun to hang out there with the "Carnival" atmosphere. 

We bought a small cup of cherries and let me tell you! They were DELICIOUS! We shared them as we walked around looking at things and Jake found it very amusing to spit the seeds at me. He managed to get one between my shirt and undershirt and now both are stained (thanks sweetie haha). But it's ok, it will come out and besides, it's a good story right? 

Anyway, we looked around the festival a little more and almost bought a raffle ticket to win an awesome restored mustang (I forget what year and everything. You'll have to ask Jake about that one). We ended up not buying a ticket but now we joke about how we probably would have won and then we could have upgraded our commuter car ;) For those of you that don't know, my Aunt Gail gave us her old 1990 Ford Thunderbird right before we got married. It has been a big blessing because it gets better gas mileage than the Tacoma and it's ok if we put 250+ miles on it each week with Jake driving to work and back because it is ancient of days. The odometer doesn't work in it and it stopped working at 233,000+ miles and that was a few years ago even. Anyway, we are kind of expecting it to die any day now but so far it keeps plugging along. It is pretty reliable so I don't think we'll need to replace it for at least another year or so. Hopefully I didn't just jinx it haha. 

Anyway, back to what I was talking about before the tangent on the car... Oh yes the Cherry Festival. After walking around for a little while we decided that we were starving and so we went to Subway for lunch. Something amazing that happened while at lunch is...wait for it.......I tried a new sandwich! For those of you that don't know my Subway usual, it is a 6 inch turkey on 9 grain honey oat (a recent upgrade from regular wheat) with no cheese, mayo, lettuce, cucumbers and olives. And that's it. Go ahead and laugh, it's ok everyone does when I tell them what I get. Jake has just started rolling his eyes now. But Saturday that all changed. I decided that I wanted to try something different so I got the Sweet Onion Chicken Teryaki sandwich with, lettuce, cucumbers, olives and Sweet Onion sauce. 

I liked it just fine, it had a little too much sweet onion sauce on it if you ask me but other than that it was decent. I will probably go back to my lame turkey sandwich though. I'm lame I know. My mom and Jake both blame my bland food preference on the fact that my mom fed me store bought baby food when I was little instead of what everyone else ate. I think they're full of it but that's ok :) 

Anyway, after my new adventure at Subway, we decided that we had seen all of the Cherry Festival that we wanted to see so we headed up toward Black Canyon. We went right below the dam and fished for a little while. I didn't catch anything (imagine that. I never do) but Jake caught a little 6 inch bass of some sort. He threw it back because it was so small but he was pretty excited. It was the first bass he had ever caught so the fishing part wasn't a total bust. This weekend some friends are coming up and we're going to go camping with them up in that area. We are also borrowing some canoes from my best friend's parents and taking them up. Hopefully we will catch some fish for dinner! Yum!! I will be back to report on the success of the camping trip next week and I will have pictures to break up my long windedness.

Catch ya next time! :)

Something Funny :)

So I found this little poem on Pinterest (I love that site!) and I found it pretty hilarious so I thought I would share it for you all. (not like there's anyone that actually reads this but hey, a I can pretend right?)

Here goes:

I wish I were a glow worm

A glow worm's never glum

'Cause how can you be grumpy

When the sun shines out your bum?! 

Hahaha! I got a big kick out of this and so I thought I would post it and hope that it will brighten someone's day like it has mine :)

Hope you liked it!