Joe's Valley

For the 24th we planned to go to Joe's Valley with Josh's family which was something I was a little pessimistic about to be painfully honest. I'm all for camping. I'm all for Josh's family. And I'm all for holiday weekends. But to drive 3 1/2 hours SOUTH (which translates to 'hot') to spend just one night there before heading home. It seemed like a lot of driving for a very short (hot) camping trip and I wasn't sure it was all going to be worth it. 

I was totally wrong.

We took the "scenic route" there and about 5 hours later we pulled into camp (you should know this was my fault....I was driving....I didn't know we had better instructions than google....and I didn't know that google thinks you can drive THROUGH mountains). We put up our tent and it immediately started to rain, which made me feel a lot better about the whole situation. It was cool, and wet, and beautiful and that made me happy.

Mom Reilley cooked some DANG good food. This is her rolling out the topping to the berry cobbler-y stuff which had festive star shaped crust pieces on top. Yes she knew we were camping.

We finally got to see fireworks which was thrilling for Josh.

We laid on the sidewalk in Castledale to watch the fireworks.

Mom and Dad Reilley.

Cami & Jessie

The next day we spent in the water, which was a blast! Josh had plenty of time to play on the wave-runners and I swam for a good 3 hours before getting out. It was beautiful. The water was cool (but not too cold) and felt perfect. We swam all over the place from one side of the marina to the other.

One thing I really love about swimming is that I can easily keep up. Had we been hiking for 3 hours I probably would've died. But swimming for 3 hours wasn't even tiring, just pleasant and enjoyable. Everybody else was wearing life jackets and getting tired and I just wasn't. I'm just learning that it's fun to do things you're good at. (I'm allowed to say I'm good at swimming because I'm not great at many things...but I am a decent swimmer. In the words of Josh's 19 year old brother "Geez! you're a beast!" Josh assures me this is a good thing.)

I love the view. The water was beautiful.

Yay for the "beach". It's no Bear Lake, but I'll take it.

In the middle of that gigantic splash is Josh and his toy. He was going nuts having a great time trying to throw himself off the wave-runner. He was successful at least once or twice, which means he was satisfied with his day's work.

After spending the whole morning in the water, we went back to camp, ate, played games and packed up. It was short, but perfect. We had just enough time to do everything we wanted to do (once) and got home BEFORE dark (which is rare). What a fantastic weekend with the family!