Kauai!

We spent Thanksgiving week on Kauai.  It was a fantastic trip.  The weather was perfect and so was the schedule.  We're so blessed to be able to visit this part of the Lord's creation!

You read that right: SPF 70.

Mahaulepu Beach

A monk seal and her new pup

Looking east into Waimea Canyon

I loved driving our soft-top Jeep Wrangler down this logging-style road to the trail head for one of our hikes in Waimea Canyon.  Plowing through the red dirt and huge mud puddles was so fun!

Indiana Jones!

Looking south into Waimea Canyon

These rock formations were very interesting.  Maybe I should take my whip and fedora and go explore them...

This small waterfall and pool is the beginning of the waterfall you see in the eastward looking picture of the canyon.

Kauai is covered with these wild chickens or as I like to call them, jungle fowl.

Here's our vacation rental.

Sunset from our deck

An ironically named volume.  I ended up scrapping this book in favor of another Cadfael mystery.

Here we are on Hanalei Bay.  Above me you can see the snout and head of Puff the Magic Dragon (from a land called Hanalei).

Here's the cliffed and roadless Napali coast.

I love the rock formations on the island.  No wonder Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed here...

A rainbow from our deck

The infamous Spouting Horn.  This hollow lava tube blows the surf up through it with the incoming tide.

Surviving the shockingly frigid Honolulu airport while waiting to catch our delayed redeye flight home.

Thanksgiving in Boise

Dave and Vicki spent the weekend before Thanksgiving with us to celebrate said holiday.  We had fun showing them our new neighborhood!

Dave and I got in plenty of Mario Kart while Stephanie and Vicki finished dinner.

Condo Pictures

Here are some pictures of the condo we moved into in September.  We love it!

Backpacking to Born Lake

Last weekend I backpacked into the White Clouds' Born Lakes with a couple of guys from my Questions Study.












































Doug and Neill on the ridge above Ant Basin




















Neill packed in his float tube, waders, and flippers and shared them with us!















On Sunday we hiked to the ridge above Four Lakes Basin. Here are the upper three lakes.















Quiet Lake beneath Castle Peak















Catching monstrous Cutthroats like these are why we hike in to such a remote lake!















Almost dinner time!















We used up all of our tinfoil cooking our fish on Saturday night, so on Sunday night we cooked them on this flat rock. Fred Flintstone would be proud!















We woke up before dawn on Monday morning to about 3" of snow. We broke camp and left as soon as it was light so that we could still see our trail out. It snowed hard for the next 4 hours.















Civilization!

Backpacking to Langer Lake

Last week we went backpacking with Stephanie's team from Ugobe. We hiked into Langer Lake which is in the Frank Church Wilderness between Lowman and Stanley. As you can see from the pictures there were still some substantial skiffs of snow.




































Stephanie caught her first fish--but wasn't quite prepared to hold it!




















A nice rainbow trout!
















Catching moutain trout is hard work.















After a nap in one of the hammocks I fished around the lake but didn't get any bites. This is the spot where Stephanie caught hers.















After storing Stephanie's catch in a snowbank for the afternoon, we cooked it for dinner in the campfire and shared it with the team. It was delicious!

You can see some other pictures of the trip on her coworkers' blogs:
Casey's Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, Eric's Pictures

She Ra Princess of Power Runs the Sawtooth Relay

A couple of weeks ago Stephanie ran the Sawtooth Relay with largely the same group of HP friends she ran with last year. This year everyone dressed as super heroes. Stephanie was She Ra Princess of Power!