Cool Stuff We Did Vol. I

James is working late tonight, so I can finally have access to the "good" computer. He is usually hogging it for stupid stuff like homework all night. And I refuse to type anything on the poopy laptop, it has a mind of its own and changes the position of the cursor--usually to the middle of a sentence at the beginning of the page—for no reason at all. And that is my excuse for my lack of blogging. However, my purpose for this blog is to document our lives since I'm a terrible (non-existent) journal writer. That being said, here is a long post to catch us up to the present:

Cool things we did this summer:


Dryden Family Reunion 

This year for the Dryden Family Reunion, we went to Granny and Grandpa's farm in Jerome, ID. (About a half hour past Twin Falls). We went on a couple outings to:

The Niagara of the West—Shoshone Falls
 

We had lunch here and the kiddos ended up playing in the sprinklers right before we got in the car to go swimming in Dierkes Lake, which is a little swimming lake that is FREEZING cold with a dock and some diving boards. Also, other people were jumping off the cliffs there, but we spent our time having races from one side to the other.


After swimming, the boys (men) decided to do some rock climbing:

This is James belaying his brother Charles. Not sure what happened to the rope in this picture.


Next stop, the ALLIGATOR farm. That's right, alligators in IDAHO!

They were all in a big cage just chillin' in the sun, but it was cool to see them semi-up close.

During the down time, the men went rock chuck hunting in the fields at Granny and Grandpa's. I think the winner of the most kills ended up being the baby of the family, Aaron. Way to show up his older brothers. (Ok, the kid is 18, he's not really a baby.)


I even went a couple times too, but I don't think I even got a shot off—I was too busy asking questions and probably being too noisy.

 Other things we did in Jerome:

• Had a barbeque with James' extended family. Each side came over to the farm on different nights.
  
• Spent time with Granny and Grandpa (they are so cute!)
  
• Played Minute to Win it—the women won
  
• Rode James' uncle's horses. I tried galloping for the first time, the stirrups were too long. It was a miracle I didn't fall off.
  
• Ate delicious food.
  
• Played late night games of Bang.
  

Backpacking
The first week of August we took James on his first ever Eddington Family Backpacking trip. Thank goodness I married an outdoorsy man, we had a blast despite the TERRIBLE mosquitoes. This year was going to be the first year for the oldest grandsons, but Cory ended up getting a new job and had to start that week. So, our group was: my dad, my brother Ryan, his son Adam (who was a trooper!), James and me. We camped at Clear Lake which sits underneath Haystack Mountain. Such a beautiful place to be even though it was a little crowded. Each day we did a day hike to another lake to either go fishing (Adam caught the most) or just enjoy the beauty.


Here are some pictures:

The crew packing it in.

The only wildlife we saw other than chipmunks and bugs.

  So beautiful!

We took this picture to recreate a picture of me as a wee one in this same area. Probably this exact same spot!

You can't see it until you get there, but you pretty much walk right into a lake, but you can't tell until you are touching it.


We caught lots of fish:

Big (ish)





And little bitty.

What a catch!


One of the days Ryan, James and I went on a day hike alone to give the old man and the munchkin a rest. I thought I was going to die. First of all, I was WAY out of shape, and then these two take me rock hopping/bouldering like a little mountain goat. The view was worth it though, and we met a guy at the top that was packing in climbing gear for some friends who were already in. I think he was carrying around 90 pounds and wearing Chacos. What a crazy!

Arrowhead Lake—can you see it? It was too scary to look over the edge to get the whole lake in the picture. We're up higher than it looks.

• We ate all of our meals in the tent so we didn't get eaten alive.
  
• James and I would have caught more fish, but we had (i.e. we're too cheap to buy another one) to share a fishing pole.
  
• It rained the entire drive to the trailhead, but we had perfect sunny weather all week. Not even a drop of rain.

And one funny story to end this post on:

We had mountain goated all the way up to this pass and at the top we sat down to eat lunch. Well, at that time I noticed something lumpy in my pants. I thought for sure it was a sock. Wrong! It was just my underwear from the day before (I wore the same pair of pants all week. Don't judge me) perfectly arranged like I was wearing them flat. No big deal. I climbed up a huge mountain and didn't even notice the extra padding in my bum.

This post will continue in Volume II of the Dryden Saga. Stay tuned! (If you want)


P.S. I'm sorry if the formatting was crazy on your computer. Blogger was freaking out! (Or I just haven't blogged in so long I can't remember how to use it)