Lava Hot Springs, Idaho 2009

Our BIG family trip this year was to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho!! We had never been there before, and had a GREAT time!!! Close to home, but yet far enough away to feel like a vacation!
We are not much for sitting in the hot pools, but give us a tube and down the river we went. We had SO MUCH FUN doing this!! Cory and Kayden jumped into one tube, Kaelee and I jumped into another tube and Ashley jumped into a single tube on her own! As you can see, the holes for your bum to sit in are quite large, even for some of us with big bums. Thank goodness that Kaelee has big muscles and Kayden had a net!!

SEXY!! I know that is what you are thinking!!! But is was just concentrating on keeping my bum up and not scraping against the rocks below!! We were a little to chicken to go down the falls, but maybe next time we will be a little braver. I told Cory that this is definately an every year trip. Next year we will have to either get smaller tubes or bigger BUMS!! Just Kidding!! We are hoping for the smaller tubes.
They also have a really nice pool!! They have an area for little children, and then they have an area for diving and they have twirlly slides and then they have the slides that make my heart stop beating!! Kayden liked this little slide, but preferred the long, straight down slides that scared his mother to death or the twirlly slides. Whenever I couldn't find him for a minute, I would all of the sudden see him coming down the slides.
Here he is on the STOP MY HEART slide!! I bet that he went down this slide at least 10 times!! The stairs to get up to it, were enough to make me think twice. Kaelee said that she counted 146 stairs. I could believe that!! I had to rest when climbing them. I wanted to be brave, so I climbed the stairs (with a few rests) and decided to go on the yellow slide instead of the purple. I asked the guy at the top of the slide, which by the way went over the main road going into Lava,
if there would be anyone at the bottom who could bring me back to life after this drop. He smiled, with his two teeth, and said, "I'm sure someone can help you out!!!" A little nervous about that answer, I went for the plunge. I layed down scared to death and waited to be whisked away by the water. Instead, the water wasn't moving me the way I thought it should and the anticipation was definately building. I kept wondering if I could climb out of the tube, but by the time I decided that was the best answer, I fell down the slide. I closed my eyes the entire way, and was just happy to finally reach the bottom!! Oh the MEMORIES!! Would I do that slide again you ask?? HECK NO!!!!! As I reach closer to 40, I am not as brave as I once was. I must be getting OLD! Oh Well!!

Kaelee didn't really care for this slide. She also liked the purple STOP MY HEART slide!! She would run up and down the stairs all day if she could. She loved going down that slide!! She challenged her dad to go with her, and so he went down the yellow slide and she went down the purple. Trying to act as if he wasn't scared, Cory looked at me when he reached to bottom and said, "That wasn't so bad!! I think that I could go down the purple one!" But he never did! Was it the climb up or was he just scared out of his mind?? You will have to ask him, but my guess is... scared out of his mind. Whatever the answer, we had a great time!!! We went on the Friday before Labor Day, and we couldn't have asked for a better day!! No crowds, No lines and lots, lots, lots of fun!!!