My Idaho Trip

No, this isn't Catie, this is Matt. I'm doing a special post about my recent trip to Idaho since Catie wasn't there. I got there July 31st (Friday) in the morning, and came back home August 2nd (Sunday) in the evening. I wish it could of been longer, but it was nice to get away and see the brethren.

I got up at 3:30 am for my flight. I was pretty tired since I went to bed just 2 hours before I got up, but after a few minutes I was fine. My mom then drove me to the Eugene airport. After saying goodbye and going through security, I waited in the terminal for what was my first flight ever. I wasn't nervous at all, I actually couldn't wait to experience flying. As we took off, it got my stomach a little. I couldn't help but smile so I turned my head so people wouldn't think I was smiling for no reason. The flight was only 25 min since it was to Portland. After waiting at the Portland airport I got on another plane headed to Boise; it was about a 1 hour and 10 min flight.

When I arrived I gave Brother Keith a call so he could pick me up. The last time I was in Boise I was about 13, so it looked so different to me. I went to spend the day with the Cornwells since Brother Keith was the only brother who didn't have to work that day. I borrowed Catie's camera so here are some pics.

Brother Keith took me to a golf ball driving range; he had some tokens for about 40 balls. This was only my third time hitting golf balls so I needed quite a few pointers. I hit a few good shots, but I definitely would need a lot more practice. Golf is a lot harder than I thought. When we got back we ate lunch. Sister Amber had this huge squash that she grew. It's kinda hard to tell how big it was in the picture, but the plate it's on is a dinner plate.

After lunch we all played rock band in the living room. It was my first time playing the drums and they were pretty hard.

Their neighbors were gone at the time and said they could use their pool all they wanted. Me and Brother Keith went swimming for a little while. The kids didn't go since they were getting over colds. Later I played with the kids in their upstairs bonus room before playing bible trivia. At 5:20 Brother Jason and Sister Donna picked me up so I could spend the night at their house.

After we got to their house, Sister Donna started dinner while Brother Jason showed me around the house. I stayed in the bedroom downstairs. It was cool, I even had my own bathroom. Here's a pic of the family.

We visited from the start of dinner (which was awesome by the way) to late at night. We had a really good visit. After I tried to help them put together their foose ball table I called it a night and got ready for bed. In the morning we had yummy banana pancakes. We had plans to float the river that day so we had to get some inter tubes pumped up. Brother Jason accidentally blew two of them up too much and popped them. At least he still had the raft though. I ended up playing with Aubrey for a while in the morning. Here's us playing pool.

I had solids and she had stripes.

I let Aubrey use the camera.

During the game she hit three of mine in on accident so later when I was winning, I hit three of hers in to make it even. Then, with only the 8 ball to go for both of us, she got it in before me. I was surprised, it didn't look like she held the stick well enough, but she actually hit some pretty good shots. We played with the walkie talkies a little bit. Her code name was friendly and mine was heart; she thought of both of them.

Later I taught her to play go fish. After she learned the basics, I told her if I asked for a card and she didn't have it to say "go fish". She must of not have heard me correctly because she kept saying "gold fish". It was funny but later I told her it was go fish and she said, "oh, go fish as in go fishing" as she pretended to cast the line out. She won both games by the way.

At 2 o'clock Brother Keith showed up to pick me and Brother Jason up. It was a guys trip only. We ate sandwiches on the way there. It was really hot that day, which meant a lot of people, and I mean A LOT of people. Brother Keith said that was the most people he's seen there. I brought my frisbee almost sure I'd get to use it on my trip. Sure enough when we got there we were waiting for Brother Adam to join us so we threw the frisbee around. Sorry no pictures.

When Brother Adam showed up we all hopped in Brother Keith's car to drive to where you get in the river. Once we got there we started blowing up the inter tubes and raft with the foot pump. Brother Jason went to rent an ore for the raft while Brother Adam and I threw the frisbee. After the car was parked and we were all set, we headed towards the river.

The water was really cold at first but we got used to it after a little while. It was really fun to just sit, relax and enjoy the river. Most of it was calm, but about 10 times there were some rapids. They weren't crazy enough to knock you off the inter tube, but they were pretty fun. Brother Jason had a cooler with snacks and drinks in the raft with him, so if we wanted anything we could just swim over and ask for something.

The river wasn't very deep, I could touch the whole way down. Once in a while it would get so shallow my feet could touch the bottom. After about 45 minutes in, Brother Keith asked who the first one would be to jump in. A moment later we heard a splash and saw that Brother Adam just jumped in. Soon after Brother Jason went in. About 10 minutes later Brother Keith asked me if I preferred showers or baths. Not knowing his intentions I answered showers. He started splashing me like crazy. He then jumped in, got back on his inter tube, then splashed me some more. It was really cold, but then it felt like I actually did jump in the river, so I didn't bother getting in til later. We all got a good laugh from that.

Later Brother Jason switched the raft for Brother Keith's inter tube. Brother Jason started drifting to the side where there were branches sticking out. We warned because he was facing the other way. Then Brother Adam said," You can always count on Jason to do something". The Boise State football stadium is right next to the river, so I got to see part of. I've never been there but I hope to be able to watch a game there someday. The Oregon Ducks football team is playing there this September, so I hope they win.

The float started to get more and more calm as we reached the end. I had so much fun. I had never done anything like that before and I hope to do it again. After deflating the inter tubes and getting in the car, we drover back to where we started to get Brother Keith's car. Brother Keith left for home while me and Brother Jason went with Brother Adam. I was spending the night at Brother Adam's and the Kurrles were invited to dinner.

After we showered and talked a little bit, it was time for dinner. Dinner was awesome again and I got really full. With full bellies we had another good visit for a while. Around 10:30 with the Kurrles gone and the kids in bed, I asked Brother Adam if he could show me their wii. I didn't think I would get another chance to try it out since the next morning was church. He showed me the ropes on how to use the controller. It was real fun once I got the basics down. We played a little tennis, bowling, golf and mario party 8. I played well on mario party and golf, but so so on the other two. Their wii sure is different to me, but I like it a lot.

I then got ready for bed when we finished. I got to sleep in Lexis's room while she slept in the boy's room.

I was perfectly fine sleeping in there, I just wanted to take a picture to be funny.

The next morning I got up, ate breakfast, and got ready for church. I asked if I could take a picture of everyone before we left.

The Winbergs showed up that day. They were staying there til the next weekend. I wish I could have seen them more, but I at least got to hang out with them for one day. After we had a really good church meeting at the Cornwell's, everyone left to get ready for the river. They all planned a church picnic at the river. I stayed at the Cornwells since I was riding with the Winbergs to the river. I changed into my trunks, then Kyle wanted to show me his new frisbee. He's already taller than me and I'm 6 years older than he is. He grew so much since I saw him two years ago.

At the river we all set up the food and blew up the inter tubes. When lunch was ready (those of you who know me as fat matt) I of course stuffed myself. Afterwards me and Kyle threw our frisbees around for a while. We later put sunscreen on and got in the raft. The river was cold like Saturday, but if you got in it wasn't so bad. Further out in the river, there was this concrete cone shaped thing shooting water straight up. We went in it with the raft. The water was coming down so hard making it hard to see. It was also freezing water from the bottom of the river, which after a while made it feel like you had a brain freeze.

Later on while me and Kyle were swimming, we saw Brother Jason and Brother Keith on the raft. We decided to sneak over and flip them. We tried to act like nothing was up once we reached them. When the right opportunity came up, we went underwater then pushed the raft up as hard as we could. It didn't work. We tried a few more times but failed. They both were just hanging on and laughing. Then Brother Keith said if we could flip them we could keep the raft. After two more tries we dragged them to more shallower water. Finally we were able to flip them over. We were spent after that.

Thanks to Sister Theresa, I have some pictures for you guys.

Me and Kyle took a rest after rowing for a while.

Brother Craig was actually on that pink inter tube for a while, it was pretty funny.

For some reason Kyle wanted to have that towel on his head.

This was after we swam for a couple hours. We decided to play presidents. When I took this shot it was a lot smaller on the camera so it made Kyle's towl look like part of the sand. We were joking saying, "where's your hair?"

At 5:40 I had to get changed and say goodbye to everybody. Brother Adam took me to the airport. As I said goodbye Lexis called me uncle matt by accident. Sister Theresa said it's because they have an uncle matt. I thought it was cool though. My flight back to Portland was at 6:55. From there I flew to Eugene where my parents and Andrea picked me up. Brother Jeff was working at the time so we got to say hi as we left. It was a really fun trip which I had a blast on. I look forward to the next time I get to go there. Hopefully it'll be longer this time.

I hope everyone enjoyed the post, later.