Out West Part 1

Our trip out west was awesome. Now, it wasn’t a sandy beach with tropical weather….but there is something just as breathtaking about the beautiful mountains and nature that Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana have to offer.

The trip started a little rough, I’m not going to lie. The night before we were scheduled to leave Mike couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t get “checked in” with United Airlines through Orbitz. Finally, he gave up and figured he would try again in the morning since our flight wasn’t suppose to leave until 5 pm. The next morning it was his first task to accomplish and roughly about an hour or two after waking up (still in my pjs) he informs me that our flight is leaving at 2 pm, not 5.

I took a deep breath and made a mad dash for the shower and to finish packing. I didn’t shed one tear, which is quite an accomplishment for me these days. I was ready to go in 45 minutes and luckily our ride to the airport (FIL) was over at the house in an hour to get us to the airport. I did take a quick minute to call Orbitz and scream my head off at some foreigner who proceeded to tell me, “it happens” and they were sorry. Sorry?!?! I’m just glad my husband thought to call or we definitely would have missed our flights. Oh, and I originally booked a flight with one layover and now this one had two. We had to go to Chicago BEFORE we landed in Denver to then fly again to Sun Valley.

And wouldn’t you know it that Denver was having some rough weather so we were late getting to Denver because we flew AROUND the storm? Of course!

However, everyone’s flights were delayed in Denver….so we didn’t miss the second flight to our final destination. We were suppose to arrive in Sun Valley/Hailey, Idaho around 8 pm and finally made it in around 11 pm. It was definitely a long day and my swollen feet were seriously unhappy with me….but we made it.

Side note – Do you know how many moms fly alone with little babies? A lot! I was way more observant of this than ever before. I was shocked. There is no way I think I could ever do that by myself. Those babies were perfect, too! A few tears but mostly sleeping and seriously awesome little campers for a long day of flying.

Unfortunately we got to the quaint little town of Hailey, Idaho when it was pretty darn dark so we saw next to nothing the night we arrived.

But when we woke up the next morning….WOW. My bro and sis-in-law have an incredible property in the mountains. Right now they are in the process of building their dream home on this property and her dad and sister are there to help this summer. We’ve seen pictures through text along the way but it didn’t hold a candle to the scenery they get to wake up to every morning.

Here are a few pictures of their house coming along.

Guest cabin

Mountain outside their deck

View from their bedroom

Inside look at the loft and the stairs leading up

Kitchen

By the time we left they had installed the deck door here but I forgot a pic!

There’s the deck door. This is also the camper they are living in while they build.

Just out their driveway

The next day we all packed up and headed to Stanley, Idaho. Along the way we made some pit stops to take a look around and see some fabulous scenery of beautiful Idaho.

There are hot springs EVERYWHERE out west and here’s one of them.
That’s my brother-in-law, David, testing the waters.

and his lovely white legs

Isn’t my husband adorable?

I have just about given up on being cute while pregnant.
The scale hasn’t changed a whole lot but boy I feel huge.
And I know it’s only going to get worse!

This overlook was incredible.

Look at that bump.
Everything is getting larger…ya hear?

Here’s my sis-in-law, Louise, her dad Rich/Dick/Richard/Funny Old Man, and her sweet sweet sister Elaine

Brothers

We stopped at Red Fish Lake on the way.
Beautiful lake and LOTS of kiddos swimming in some super cold water.
They even had a dog beach for Judy and VooDoo!

Judy’s their sweet stinky dog.
She’s a lot like Shiloh.

Meeting other dogs on the beach.

Judy and VooDoo

Here’s another hot spring in Stanley, Idaho.
Of course, being pregnant, it was one of the many things I couldn’t enjoy on the trip.
I’m definitely traveling back out west without a fetus so I can horseback ride, maybe whitewater rafting, and enjoy some hot springs.

Here’s the cabin we stayed at in Idaho and the boys grilling dinner.
We had delicious trout!

This was looking out behind our cabin.
A beautiful cattle ranch on the Salmon River.

There’s always part of vacations where the husband wants to do something that totally interests him and sounds terribly boring to me. I love him dearly so I roll my eyes and go with the flow for a bit to see his eyes sparkle and his smile shine.

This was that part.

The dredge.

He can probably tell you way more about it than I can because I had to pee most of the tour and couldn’t pay attention. I was also terribly bored and wanted to stick a fork in my eye.

Basically it’s a huge machine that works like a CoinStar except they were looking for gold.
He would kill me for explaining it like that, but that’s how I understood it.

Looking sexy at the dredge waiting to hear where the bathroom is.

The rest of these pics were totally my husband. I have no freakin clue what they are but I know he wants to show his buddies….sooo……scroll down til something sparks your interest.