Shutting Down Lava Hot Springs (and more fun)

Thursday August 2, 2018

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY BENNY!

There is joy in this boy!

~~~~~

Our family was starting to dwindle by Thursday morning. Due to work Jake had to leave Wednesday evening and Cody, Alisa and kiddos left at 2:00 a.m. Thursday morning to fly east for a show. The rest of us continued to have tons of fun.

~~~~

We arrived at Lava Hot Springs early enough to be the first ones in line for tickets. Ten minutes after the pool opens, while we are still trying to put up our canopy and screen room, an announcement goes out for everyone to get out of the water and for all lifeguards to be on the look out for a little 5 yr., old boy in a blue Spiderman swimsuit who answers to Gabriel. Hillary was a near basket case anyway with her boys in such close proximity to so much water, and with Gabe missing she was close to frantic and near tears.
*******

(Zman and Izzy chill with some fruit while the grown-ups look for Gabe)

Within minutes our missing munchkin was found going down the tall twisty slides. After he was duly lectured on staying with his buddy and always letting a grown up know where he is, then having to sit out for 15 minutes while watching everyone else have fun, he and grandma went to the Kiddie pool to join in the fun there.

The natural hot springs make these pools nice a warm. The kiddie pool was not only a favorite of the 5 and under set, some of the older kids loved it too. 

FYI - J.J. is a fish. He loves the water. Go figure. 

Everyone over 42" tall went down the slides. Here Grandpa and I take our turns on the speed slides.

Some of the family liked the thrill of the platform jumps. Here Cami and Jacob perform a tandum jump from the top platform with synchronized kicks. (Cami's legs kept kicking on the way down.) 

The judges give it a Score of 8.4!
!!!!

Jacob and Ransom took several turns off of the lower platforms.

It was good to have the canopy and screen rooms where we could rest from all of our hard play. Emily and Annabelle were swimming buddies for part of the day.

Reagan just crashed for about 45 minutes. She was plum tuckered out!

The Portneuf River runs right through Lava Hot Springs, so we rented some tubes and took all of the kids floating down the river. 

We rented several different size rafts and took turns riding the river. When they closed the pool for 2 hours because of rain, we just took all the kids to the river park and tubed the river and mini rapids over and over.

Everyone had a blast!

We found a beautiful hidden park behind the hot springs and the river. The little boys loved exploring this hidden garden. My camera died early on or I would have taken a lot more pictures of the day. Thank you Cami for letting me use some of your photos.

After spending the entire day at the river we were nearly exhausted when we got home after 7:00 p.m. I will say that everyone slept well that night.