Saturday, July 21, 2012

Adventures in Hiking


We went on a fun family hike tonight.  Kev wanted to set up some trail cameras to stalk elk, so we all went along.  We had a great time.  Jacob swore that he'd never been hiking before (Dawn and Carvel, [parents] I know for a fact that can't be true.  That would make him a very deprived kid).  He thought it was really great.  And what's not to like.  It was quite exciting.  I'll let the pictures tell the story. 

If only we matched! It could be our Christmas card shot.
Jacob thought this was really cool and wanted a picture to show his family.
And this is where the fun began.  We ran into about 1/2 mile's worth of cow diarrhea, and Jacob stepped in some.  And because we all have the maturity of 10 year olds, we had to make a really big deal about it (especially Kevin).
Eat it!!  Eat it I said!!
I promise:  My only motivation was that I was afraid Kev would try to pick me up and end up dropping me in.
So then, he has to pick up a stick, smear it with pooh and give chase.  Three kids, running down the side of a rocky mountain.  Hmmm - Can you guess where this ends?
Yep, you got it.  Poor Brinkley.
Big, sexy bully.  I always did like the bad boys.
They made up.  All is well.
"And what did we learn from this?" Kevin asks as we arrive back to the car.  "Never run down a mountain.  Even if you're being chased by a pooh monster."  Thank you Lily.  Well said.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

No Dye Tie-Dye



While camping this last week, Brinkley missed a Tie-Dye birthday party.  So I decided that it would be a fun activity for us to do with Jacob, while we were up here camping.  I headed to the Dollar Tree for t-shirts (gray for Jacob and white for the girls), then went on Pinterest for instructions.  I didn’t really want to use real Rit Dye.  Too messy and too much of a pain, so I researched other options.  One idea I found was to let the kids color with Sharpies.  After you wash it, the colors kind of bleed together. 

I thought that would be cute for younger kids, but I figured mine could handle something a little more complicated.  That’s when I stumbled across this:


Love it!  It worked so well and was so easy.  Miss Ricochet and Away! let her kids use spray bottles to paint their shirts.  I thought that was a great idea, but didn’t want to buy 10 spray bottles.  I just let my kids use sponge brushes and that worked really well.  We had the best time doing this.  The kids wore their shirts to the rodeo and were really excited about them.  So excited in fact, that when we found more shirts at another Dollar Tree in Heber City, we decided to do it again!  I even got in on the action and Tie-Dyed an old white camping t-shirt.
We learned a few things though.  When the shirts dry, the color fades, so the second time, we really saturated the shirts.  Plus we added extra paint to the water for a more vibrant color.  This time we also did socks.  I don’t know that the socks were my favorite, but the kids liked them. 
Just a tip, if anyone decides to do their own.  After the shirts dry and you unroll them, put them in a good hot dryer for at least 15 minutes to heat seal the color into the shirts. 
Yay!  So much fun!!

Monday, July 16, 2012

Fun Camping Guests

Cool Cousins
Kev left for work this morning and won't be back until Thursday.  We were excited though, because we had some fun guests that arrived just before lunch.  My mom came up to keep me company for two nights and she brought my nephew Jacob with her.  Jacob was visiting from Idaho and had been staying with my sister Beth since Wharton Family Camp.  Mom brought Jake up to camp with us until the weekend, when we are planning to deliver him back to Beth for a few days before he goes home (we actually ended up having so much fun with him, we begged to keep him until the next Tuesday when his mom came for him.  We were lucky that Beth said yes!).

Jacob Hymas
I love having my mom come up to stay.  We have a great time.  Lots of chatting, playing games, taking walks.  We're easy friends and I really enjoy her company and the girls love her.  I'm sad I didn't get a picture of her whipping me at Banagrams or Phase 10 Dice.


Jacob is eleven and going into the 6th Grade, but still plays really well with both of my girls.  They had a blast riding bikes (which they pretended were horses), swimming, enjoying Kamas's Fiesta Days, and picto-chatting on their DS's at night before bed.  He was a wonderful camper guest and we loved having him.




They spent tons of time riding Bikes.  Oh, I mean their horses.
Pictured from left to right:  Blue Jeans, Falls, and Cookie Dough.


My fat, patriotic piggy toes. 
But more importantly, super-cute kids swimming in the background.

Infamous Pooh Stew.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Home Sweet Home

 We pulled into the Woodland Camperworld tonight for the first time this year.  My home away from home.  It feels good to be back.  After all the lamenting about new managers last summer, it’s good to be here and see that it all looks pretty much the same.  The new managing couple remembered Kevin and I, and that Kevin is on Search and Rescue - it's nice to be remembered.  And the park looks nice.  There’s little things that I could gripe about --- the lawn in the pool area looks uncharacteristically brown and weedy, the pool garbage can is gone (where in the crap are kids supposed to put their used bandaids that come off in the pool??!), they now close and clean the one and only bathroom in the whole park every morning from 8 – 8:30am (REALLY!!??  Do they know that we’re camping and people that are in tents wake up having to pee, with no place to go, but the one  and only bathroom in the park??!!) --- but I don’t want to spend my blog space doing that.  : )  Overall things look clean and well maintained. 
Our plan is to camp for two full weeks, until July 29th.  We’d like to stay about a week and a half here, and then maybe dry camp up the road for a few days, but we’re going to play it by ear.  Kev is here for tonight, then gets up tomorrow and goes to work and won’t be back until the end of the week.  He’s my hero for hauling me up here, so I can vacation and relax without him.  I look forward to the day when he can spend all summer up here with me.


First night of camping surprise for Lily - a new pocket knife.  A friend commented that she looks like Chuckie from Child's Play in this picture.  She totally does!  Scary.


Sweet Brinkley and her surprise.  New fins to practice for snorkeling with Papa!