Rafting the Payette River

I really have been blessed with the greatest group of friends!!

About a month ago, Matt and I talked with our friends, Mike & Anne Thomas, about going rafting during their week long family vacation. We threw it out to our life group to see if anyone wanted to join us. It seemed to have been bad timing for them so we reach out to our adventure loving friends, the Howards, Leonards, Mari & her bf. I paid for 12 spots so we only had to hunt for 2 more people to join us. 

We thought we had it figured out but 3 days before the trip, that fell through so we started to scramble looking for friends. I reached out to my old friend Kimmy & her hubby James to see if they'd be willing to take the last two spots. It couldn't have worked out more perfectly since she had the day off and her mother in law was coming to town and could watch their 5 month old baby girl!

We caravanned up with Kimmy & James, then waited until our group could join us in Lowman. 

At 4:15pm, we were all together, with helmets and life jackets, loading into the bus for our half day rafting trip with Payette River Company. 

Mari, Katie and Hailey with their lovers were in a boat while Kimmy, Anne and I were in a boat with our loves. We all laughed so much with each other and at each other! 

     

 

  

   

 

 

 

 

We stopped halfway at Kirkham hot springs so we could jump into the river and float our way down. I did it a couple times before we were called back to the rafts. Poor Matt lost his Oakleys in the river when he jumped. It's not like they're $150 or anything! Ugh. Matt had to suffer through the 2nd half of the trip going stream into the sun. 

      

The trip ended way too quickly. After being in the water for 2 hours, we headed back to the office to check out the pictures, buy some merchandise, change our clothes and head to Garden Valley for our favorite little restaurant. I was raving over the burgers at Two River Grill so everyone was so excited until we found on the menu that they don't serve burgers on Friday / Saturday nights!!! WTH!!! We ended up having to pay double the price for the entrees' ... which were worth it. We stayed there so late and didn't get home until 11pm. We laughed so hard all night long and no one wanted it to end. 

And someone didn't want to wake up the next more. At least not until 10am.