July 17-18: First Camping Trip

Our kids look really happy?!

Last weekend was our ward campout AND our first ever family camping trip. The kids went up with Grandma and Pop on Thursday morning. They were so excited to be in their trailer. And I felt a little weird not having those two around all day Thursday. It was way too quiet in the house. That's when I called Kevin and told him we need another baby to fill up the quiet. He wasn't too convinced. He missed the kids way too much on Thursday. We went to Arriba's for a dinner date that night.

We drove up to camp on Friday morning - Kevin happened to have a meeting in Payson so we stopped there for a good couple of hours. What did I do? I went to Walmart for 1.5 hours - Maddie and I tried out all the toys, looked at all the books, etc. Then for the last half hour I sat in the car sorting my mountain of coupons. I was glad that I had some dead time to sort those things. We got to our camp around 12:30 p.m. and set up the tent (Thanks Adam and Kristie!).

I helped with the ward program and visited with our good friends until dinner then it was time to go to bed. The program turned out great, and although we wanted to, we didn't have time to roast marshmallows together. Maddie wasn't tired eventhough it was almost midnight. Collin zonked out while watching Nacho Libre. I cleaned the kids off with baby wipes (they were SOOO dirty!) before they dozed off to bed. Maddie finally went to sleep after midnight.


It was a good night - although Kevin and I really didn't get any sleep. We were warm but the mattress! It was you know just an air mattress. So when we woke up I asked Kevin if he got some sleep (cause I didn't) and he said NOPE. That made two of us. The kids woke up in a deflated air mattress - time to throw that thing away! But at least they were still wrapped up in two big fluffly quilts. We enjoyed a great breakfast courtesy of our ward, and then Kevin and I packed up the tent and our belongings. We sat and talked with friends and family some more, ate some lunch, and headed back to town.

We had such a good time up there.

a BIG PLUS for me was that Kevin unloaded everything from our car to our laundry room, washed and scrubbed all our dirty shoes, and loaded the washer with our camp laundry all before I even could think of any of that stuff. He had everything cleaned up before 8 pm, even took the car to the car wash for me.

What a great husband!!!

I know.

Unbelievable.

Allie will have to look VERY hard for someone to match up to this in the future.

Not sure how I got lucky.

Now for some picture overload:

Maddie found this already-eaten silly candy pacifier (the candy part is gone, she's just sucking on whatever the candy was stuck to)

Having fun in the hammock with Travin and Jace

Maddie spent a lot of time wandering around the camp and sitting in the dirtiest chair of the three kid kind we brought with us.

She loved the licorice!

The kids played Old Maid

Allie spent LOTS of time running around with her girlfriends Olivia and Vienna (seen here), also Isabelle, Bailey and Morgan among others. She came home to eat and sleep.

Collin played with Kyle. Here they are pretending to ride a quad. Collin loved riding the rhino with the Merrills.

Here is Maddie throwing a fit. She woke up so early on Saturday (6 a.m.) after not going to bed until after midnight, that by 8 a.m. she was so tired she threw this fit.

Not even an hour into our drive home, all the kids zonked out!

The whole family of campers: Merrills, Drysuit, The Other Harris, G and P Harris and us

Collin loves this quad. Hint, dad.

Collin and Jace were out before the movie was even over.

We (me, Danette, Kevin & Mark) couldn't have been more color-coordinated.
Excuse the non-makeup.

Allie enjoying the warm fire

Until next year!