I just realized I never posted our camping trip pictures!! :S They are going up now...in November, lol. Our trip was in mid-July and was much needed. We spent a week up on Kolob, the same place we went last year, our brother-in-law has family with a ton of nice land up there that they are kind enough to let us use these past couple years (there's even a bathroom with a regular tub/shower in a cute little...shack?), it's just a short hike up a little hill. Our camping trips take quite a bit of planning, we all have very large tents, air mattresses, bedding, rugs to go outside our tents etc. Along with all that we set up an intense kitchen area with folding tables for meals under a huge carport thing. Add in all the other gear and supplies, plus baby stuff and it's quite the packing list! It's a big job, but it's so worth it, we love camping!! I'm not sure I would like it if we didn't do it like we do, though, I grew up camping like this, out in the wilderness with all these supplies and set ups. Every family also gets assigned meals, we have a lot of people who go now, so we all end up taking care of about 3-4 meals total, it works out pretty good. :)
Cade brought up a ton of four wheelers and bikes, so Bridger got his first try driving a tiny little four wheeler all on his own, I was so proud of him! His control was awesome! Grandpa Brown walked behind him with a rope, you can pull it if the kid loses control and it kills the engine or something to that effect.
The boys LOVED riding on the four wheelers, they just kept asking over and over to ride them, Jeremy didn't mind. ;) And he looks super hot.
While we were there the owners had some loose shale rock dumped and it was CRAZY. The dump truck had to make a few trips and it could barely get out every time, it had to keep reversing and gunning it, it was quite noisy, but besides that it was quiet. :)
Every afternoon one of the families planned a craft, it helped keep the kids quiet while Beckham tried to sleep, lol. One day they did sling shots, another they did scratch art and sun catchers with paint, we made keychains/bracelets too, it was all really fun! Jeremy helped Bridger stencil his scratch art. :)
This is Bridger's "pet" grasshopper we found (Jeremy and I actually previously tried to kill it in the tent, but Bridger came in and found it and saved it), it couldn't jump anymore...but Bridger loved it, he still talks about it sometimes! He's sad we left it there. It was a pretty cute baby grasshopper.
Our ginormous campfire circle! Smores were CCCRRRRAAAAZZZZYYYY!!! It was really fun to sit by the fire every night, almost every night it ended up being only Jeremy, myself, Jen, Cade (when he was there), and Ethen and we'd just talk about anything and everything. It's nice not having anything else to distract (movies, phones, TV, all that...).
Beckham as we were packing to leave, he was being so good and not eating the M & M's he wanted so bad.
Because of the loose shale that got dropped and spread right before we left it was VERY difficult to get out. These aren't "maintained" roads, they are just dirt roads with lots of ruts and rocks and tree branches in the way, it also has a pretty steep descent into the camp ground. We have a Highlander, but it's not four wheel drive and it took us a couple times to get up the crazy hills to get out. My parents also got stuck, so the both of us were ready to put our SUV's up for sale as soon as we got home-who cares about gas mileage, right???? jk. But not really. My sister has a Tahoe and was also hauling the loaded trailer and got out fine. So...to say the least, Jeremy is ready for something different, ha ha!
Oh! And I almost forgot, I packed Jeremy a pair of pants that were already ripped in the butt from last year!! He had duct taped them on our last camping trip so I couldn't tell when I quickly packed them, well, we found out that duct tape certainly has its limits when we were pushing vehicles up the slippery, rock covered mountain hill and his pants ripped all the way down the leg. He was like holding them together to hide himself, HA HA! When we finally got up the hill, he was so mad! He got in the car and changed into basketball shorts and his ripped jeans came flying out the window into a field...I laughed so hard. Oh my.
