Daniel's busiest time of year for work is July and August, which makes it hard to get in some camping trips. So this August... we had three. Haha!
I planned our first trip with the Christensens, Freis and Norrises. Well, really we kind of crashed the Christensens' family campout. They were going camping up Hobble Creek Canyon, and they invited all of us to join them. We got 4 campsites relatively close to each other and hung out for the weekend. Daniel had to come up later in the evening, so I took the kids up and set up camp in the late afternoon. We had dinner with the others at their campsites and the kids all hung out with each other, playing by the stream that ran through the campground. It was fun! And the campground was so pretty and fun! Brooke stayed out for most of the night with Claire and Jack Christensen under a bridge by the stream. Jack played with all of the little kids -- Gabe and Grace, Nathan, and Arwyn. They built this adorable little fort out of branches and part of a tree. It was cute.
The next camping trip we took was actually just for the girls and me. The Stake Women's Campout. I went up early to help them set up at the main pavilion. Sarah and Annette brought up Brooke, Baylee and Camille later, when they were done with school.
The weekend was so great! That first night, we had dinner and a fireside. Some of the Stake women leaders got up to bear their testimonies, and we sang songs in between. Afterwards, we went back to our own campfire with our ward to have treats and to hear a devotional. That night was rough sleeping. I brought earplugs, but they only helped so much. We were in a cabin with a bunch of other girls and women, and there were quite a lot of noises. One girl woke up with a nightmare at one point. So mostly, I just wove in and out of sleeping (rather, dozing) until my alarm went off at 5am. Brooke and I went on the sunrise hike with a bunch of others. I think there were 70 of us total. We hiked about 3 miles round trip up to the top of a hill. We had to start hiking back before the sun actually crested the mountains, but the sunrise was still lovely.
That day, there was an awesome morning devotional after breakfast. They had a guest speaker, whose name I forget, but she was a great speaker and talked about growing closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus through trials and scripture study and prayer and stillness.
We had a bunch of classes for the rest of the day, breaking once for lunch. The girls and I mostly split up and did our own classes. They stuck with their friends, for most of the day. It was kind of weird, I was there with my girls, but I feel like I hardly saw them. But the classes I did were great. There was one about finding stillness, one about internet safety for the family, words of President Nelson, and how to stay strong in the church. They were such great classes. I felt like I learned a lot about how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me and want strong relationships with me, and I can and should put in more effort to strengthen my relationship with them.
After classes, we went to pack up our cabin and do the required cleaning before heading home.
Our last camping trip was just this last weekend. We kicked it off with a date on Wednesday night. Daniel and I headed up to Granite Flats campground above Tibble Fork Reservoir in the afternoon while Sarah (my sister in law Sarah) came to watch the kids overnight. Daniel and I set up the tent and started a fire to make ourselves a camp dinner of burgers and grilled veggies. Sarah and Matt Frei came up a little after us and set up their campsite as well. They joined us for dinner, and we sat around the fire and ate and chatted. It was a fun date night.
They left late at night to go back home to bed, but Daniel and I stayed overnight together in our tent. Daniel pointed out that we have never been camping just the two of us before, which seems crazy after 15 years is marriage between two people who enjoy camping. It was kind of nice, just camping the two of us.
We went down the mountain early-ish the next morning. The kids were already gone for school next morning, but Sarah and Sawyer were playing together. She left about the time I had Johnny and Avery over for preschool group. We talked about colors, read books about colors, and did an activity sorting the magnatiles into different color categories. They are such a great group of kids! They stayed engaged in learning way longer than I thought they would. And they played together so well, and it was just delightful to have them.
Daniel and I spent the afternoon cleaning ourselves up and getting ready to camp for the weekend. It was tricky, because Daniel had hired a paint company to come paint our main floor, and so we were trying to stay out of their way and work around them.
We picked up the kids from school, as well as the middle Frei kids, and drove immediately up the mountain to our campground. We finished getting camp set up with sleeping bags and things, built a fire and had dinner, all the while, the kids were exploring around the campsite. We just had hotdogs and chips and s'mores for dinner. Sarah and Matt came up with their other kids later in the evening, and we hung out and the kids played and ate treats until bedtime. Everyone stayed up way too late, as is the way with camping.
The next day we had breakfast and went on a short hike with everyone. The little kids complained quite a lot, predictably, but it was a pretty hike along a very green path with the stream running along it. We went for about three quarters of a mile before hiking back to our site. We had some sandwiches for lunch before driving down to the lake to hang out and kayak. All the kids loved playing in the sand, digging and building sand castles. Brooke and Claire went on a long kayak ride and explored the island in the middle of the lake for a long while. Camille also went out a few times on a kayak. I was surprised when Jack wanted to go kayak towards the end of the afternoon. He loved it! He was out a whole, and he went a lot further on the lake than I thought he would (and maybe further than I was comfortable with). He was so cute, how much fun he was having in the kayak. Sarah and I went on a short kayak ride together before we left the lake. It was such a lovely day. We went back to the campsites for dinner, and the Smiths joined us for the last night of camping. After dinner, we went to their campsite (which is really our favorite site ever, it's so cool) for a fire and desserts. The kids loved exploring that area!
Our next day was just taking down camp in the morning and spending the day at the lake again. All the kids did some kayaking together and had a great time digging in the sand. Harvey, Claire and Brooke went out kayaking a bunch together. Cute little friends. I took Daniel and dropped him off at the head of a biking trail, and he biked down and met us at the lake again. We were all exhausted and so dirty by the end of our camping trip. So we went home and unpacked and got ourselves cleaned up. We had some great camping trips this month! I loved being in the mountains so much!! It's so peaceful and lovely.
