Redfish Lake

We had a fabulous time up at Redfish Lake in Idaho with Grandma and Grandpa Snow and Uncle Danny and Aunt Shirley (Jeremy's aunt and uncle).  If you are like me and have never heard of it before, it is near Sun Valley.  That didn't really give me much of a reference either.  All I understood was that it was a 6 hour drive to get there.  The kids actually did quite well.  On the way up we sent the boys with Grandma and Grandpa and the girls just watched movies.  So pleasant!  We had all the kids back for the way home but even then they did pretty well.
Our plan was to leave Monday morning early and get there in the afternoon, however, on Thursday we got a message informing us that Jeremy's cousin had died in a boating accident at Lake Powell.  The funeral was scheduled for Monday morning in Logan.  So, we drove to Logan first, went to the funeral and then continued up to Redfish Lake getting there more like 7:00pm.  It was a beautiful funeral but hard as well.  Dave was young and had only been married 5 months.  It was sad to see his life cut so short.  It was a hard way to start our trip but it was a nice reminder to love my family always and it made me so grateful to know that we can be together forever.
We didn't have a lot of time since we were leaving Wednesday afternoon, but we packed in the fun! 

The kids immediately found "walking sticks."  They even named them and carved their initials into them.  Uncle Danny had to break out the chain saw to cut off some of the bigger branches that got in the way.

 

Dinner was hot dogs roasted over the campfire.  The kids loved the fire!  Who doesn't, right?

Sitting around the campfire eating smors!  The kids liked to roast the marshmellows but they didn't want to eat the smors.  I ate several so the kids could all do the roasting. 

  Jeremy and Jackson won the crossbow contest so they won the 1st place stick.

The lake was beautiful! 

 Dalton wanted to go on a hike so the kids gathered up their walking sticks and off we went!

 

 It was beautiful! 

Next on the agenda was the fish hatchery.  This is where they spawn salmon.  It was so interesting.  Then the kids got to fish in a little pond.  They even provided the rods and the worms.

 

Holly was the only one who caught a fish.  She was thrilled!  It was catch and release, of course!

 Next came kayaking.  Dalton and Jeremy were the first to go.  The other kids stayed back and played near the beach.

 Holly was scooping up minnows in her net.

 



Holly and Ally got to go kayaking with Grandpa.

Jackson spent hours doing this. 

 Jeremy and I tried to spend hours doing this.

And the older kids spent hours doing this.

Dalton caught a minnow.  Can you see it?

Ally opted to catch shells!

We had a fabulous time!  The kids loved every minute of it.  I think Jackson's favorite part was using the bathroom in Uncle Danny and Aunt Shirley's 5th wheel.  He told me on numerous occasions that we needed to buy a toilet like that.  He also thought we should live in an RV.  I'm so glad we got to go.  It was a great way to finish off the summer.  We will have to do it again someday.