Ockey Family Adventures: Bear Lake Day 3/4

Our boys love spending time with their cousins.

The big reason we went to Idaho Falls was so that Bob could take us fishing. The problem was that Bob's boat was having a little trouble. He and Dad had stayed up late working on it, but it still needed some finishing touches on the motor. It wasn't until after lunch that all the boys got on the road up to Ririe Reservoir. We launched the boat and hit the water.

Dax was bursting with energy and excitement, but before we put the poles out, Bob set the crawdad traps. We were all intrigued and excited because we'd never trapped crawdads before. Then we put the poles out and almost immediately we had success. It was an amazing day fishing as we pulled in a total of ten fish. We would have done even better if we hadn't forgotten the net, because at least three fish got away as we were flipping them into the boat without it. We were so busy catching fish that we barely had time to bait poles in between catches.

Everyone caught a bunch of fish.

They had so much fun!

Dax loved it most of all!

After a few hours we went back to check the traps. There were only 5 crawdads when we pulled them up, but Bob rebaited them with the guts of the fresh fish we'd caught and moved them to another spot. Then we fished for a few more hours. We were almost as successful with the fish, but the crawdad traps did a lot better. One of them was packed with 9 crawdads, and all together we caught 27!

They had more fun catching the crawdads.

It was a totally new experience!

We didn't get home from the lake until almost 8 o'clock. Steph and Mom had spent a great day watching Abby play softball and doing some shopping. They'd whipped up some tacos for us, too. The tacos were great, but still Bob threw a few fish on the barbecue and started up a big pot of boiling water. We all watched as Bob put cajun spices, onions, carrots, and sausage in the boiling water. Then he plunked all twenty seven crawdads into the boiling water. Eventually, they started to float to the top! None of the Ockeys really loved the stew, but the Ferlans made it disappear before bedtime.

Mom and the girls did drinks and softball.

Abby and Kate were so nice and cleaned our van.

Stephanie does not like crawdads.

The kids took turns holding them.

Mom wasn't too sure at first.

But luckily, it didn't pinch her.

Bob cooked everything up deliciously!

Bob had one more surprise for us, too. He pulled out some fireworks that he'd been saving. Each of the kids got to shoot off a roman candle, and there were plenty of other bangs, pops, and sparkles, too. We had such a great day, and we can't wait to go stay with the Ferlans again!

The kids played a lot of baseball!

Everyone got a chance to do some fireworks.

They thought it was so cool because we don't usually do fireworks.

Seth loved it.

The kids liked staying up late!

Our last day in Idaho was fairly short, but we did get to visit the zoo. Idaho Falls has a fairly large zoo, and we loved seeing some of our favorite animals. Seth loves snow leopards right now, and he was excited to see them. Mark loved the birds. Dax was happy reading all the information signs. Mostly, we liked spending time with the cousins.

After a few hours at the zoo, we went to see Grandma and Grandpa Daniels. After a couple of hours, we hit the road, making it home pretty late.