TNT: Couples retreat to Flaming Gorge

Last Weekend, July 17-20 we had a fun couples get-away with our close friends, Tiffany, Kenny, Nick and Chris. It was such a nice break to go without kids and just be kids ourselves.

We left Thursday night and stopped in Park City for dinner. It was our first time eating at Free Birds and it was yummy!

Tom and Tiffany found Cokes with their names on them at the gas station.

We stopped off in Evanston to buy groceries for the weekend.

We arrived at Kenny’s family property in Manila where we would stay for the next three days. That night we enjoyed just vegging and talking until late (3am?).

Tom and I were sharing a room with Chris and Nick and I slept really considering I wasn’t in my own bed (the new mattresses helped). We woke up around 9am and discovered our roomies had left to go on a walk. When we got up, Kenny and Tiffany were about to go on a walk themselves, so we decided to join them.

We walked all the way to Wyoming and back to Utah (it was really only about a mile round trip walk ).

We got back, had breakfast and got ready to go to Green River.

We packed a lunch and then got the raft ready. Chris, Nick, Tiffany and I waited with the raft while Tom and Kenny dropped off the truck at the end of the run and then drove back to us in our van.

The Dam girls.

It was such a nice day, and the weather was perfect for river rafting!

Nick and Tom were the rowers in the front and Kenny was the rudder. Us girls just hung out in the middle.

Tom and Kenny also fished while we were on the river. Not even ten minutes down the river, Tom caught this little guy.

The boys controlled the raft and fished.

Us girls had fun. We ate lunch on the raft, played two truths and a lie and blew bubbles.

With less than a mile left to go, Tom finally caught another fish. This one was a big brown trout!

Unfortunately, Nick was trying to help Tom get the fish into the raft and the hook caught his finger! We pulled over while he pulled it out.

Then a few minutes later, Tom caught another one! This one was hooked on it’s head instead of it’s mouth.

After the river, we went sight seeing around the river. We saw the dam and the gorge, then found this gorgeous view.

We couldn’t decide on where to eat (there’s only so many choices between Green River and Manila). We finally decided on a little place in Manila that was only ok.

That night we hung out again watching TV, eating nachos and playing games. Everyone else stayed up and watched “What Lies Beneath”, but since I HATE scary movies and was so tired from lack of sleep and the long day, I went to bed.

After my great nine hours of sleep I felt much better and we got up and ready for another adventure! Saturday we decided to take the boat out. We were so lucky to have all the connections through Kenny’s family and didn’t have to spend much money to enjoy our weekend.

Da girls. Da guys.

Nick tried to knee board, with not much success.

Tom accidentally spilled someone's soda all over the boat, then while cleaning it up, someone else spilt one of the other soda’s! It was kind of funny.

Tom decided to wake board and made it look easy with his awesome skills!

I was trying to gear up to do something, but I have a huge fear of water with living creatures in it. Then the wind picked up and the water was too choppy anyway. I was perfectly fine just sitting back and enjoying the boat, scenery and conversation.

Then, out of the blue, Tom just dived off the boat and into the water. Silly boy!

After a fun few hours, we decided to head back for lunch. Nick and Tom sat in the bed of the truck (joys of a small town).

It was so nice to work together as six adults with the food prep and clean-up. What a nice change from home with four messy kids (love them)!

We took it easy that afternoon and watched a movie. Well, some of us watched the movie, some just took a nap :)

More games.

We had a late lunch and needed to kill time until dinner, so we decided to drive around Manila. We spotted antelope and decided it would be fun to chase them. Who needs alcohol to act goofy!

We got back around 9pm and put together our chicken-bacon-veggie-kabobs. They were so tasty!

The boys showing off their very bad sunburns. (Tom’s didn’t show up until later? and Tiffany and Chris were a little red too. I lucked out, or maybe the 50spf sunscreen I used actually worked.)

Sunday we slept in a bit longer than planned and rushed to get ready for church. We enjoyed going to the Manila ward.

We returned home from church and cleaned house.

It was so nice of Kenny’s mom to let us stay there. The property had so many neat antiques!

We stopped in Mountain View on the way home and had lunch at the Pizza Hut. It was really tasty!

We dropped our friends off, then Tom and I headed off to Sunday dinner at my dad’s house.

We picked up the boys on the way, they stayed with their cousins, Talmage and Kate (and Hunter, Marcus, Aunt Sara & Uncle Bryce). Jeff lost a tooth while he was there too.