Almost Moving Day

Today is our last day at the Camperworld in Woodland.  It has been much like any day.  Reading, games, and swimming in the river.  The girls actually discovered that they LOVE the game RackO.  We’d played it Thursday with my Mom.  She’d been Lily’s tutor and when I sat down to play Lily this morning, she beat me three games straight.  Thanks Mom.  Brinkley won games four and five.  Finally, I won the sixth game, so I could quit and go read my book.  : )  The girls kept playing though forever.  They’re in love with it.  At dinner when we played Old Maid Dice and Phase 10 Dice they would have still preferred to just play RackO.

They also swam in the river one more time.   As soon as Lily arrived, and before I knew what was happening she had Tye in the river floating down with her.  Needless to say, he was very unimpressed and the next time they tried to pull him in he fought hard and won.  

Go Tye!

Work It Brinks!

River Rats

Trying to get Tye BACK in the river.

No Way!

Well, maybe just for a wade.  But I'm not swimming!

Sunshine and Free Slurpees

It’s 5:45pm and FINALLY the rain has stopped, the skies are blue and I think it’s going to be dry from here on out.  I said we kind of liked rain days while we were camping but the leaks last night made it not so fun plus rain is not as fun when Mom is here.  We don’t want to be holed up in the camper watching movies.  We want to be out and about in the sunshine and around the park. 

My gerry-rigging job last night did hold through the night.  No more leaks.  It rained a couple of times, but not as hard and not a lot.  This morning though was still really wet, over-cast, cool, and it rained more this afternoon. 

With words like this, it's no
wonder I won Banangrams!  : )

We had fun though.  My mother’s mother, my Grandma Lula, loved playing games, reading, and working puzzles.  And guess what?  My mother loves playing games, reading, and working puzzles.  Don’t you love it?  Today we played more Bananagrams, Farkle, and Racko.  Then after lunch went into Kamas.  Someone reminded me it was Free Slurpee Day at 7-Eleven.  Yay!  That was our first stop.  Then we did a little shopping at some little shops and boutiques here in town.  Our favorite stop was High Mountain Drug Store.  They have hand-dipped ice cream and we all indulged.  Brinkley and I decided that next time we were sharing.  The scoops are way too big.  We felt like big pigs afterwards.  It was yummy though.  I’d wanted to call Kev.  I hadn’t talked to him since he left on Tuesday night.  We have zero cell service in the park.  But of course when I called in town it went straight to voicemail.  He hadn’t gotten up yet.  Boo.

Mom left  in the late afternoon and we were sad to see her go.  Now I’m just sitting out at the picnic table, typing, enjoying the sunshine and my dinner.  The girls and I decided it would be fun to have a Freebee Evening, meaning we can all do pretty much what we want until bedtime.  They’ve chosen to lay out the table bed, eat Totino’s Pizza, and watch a movie of course.  I’ve chosen to enjoy the great outdoors while on my laptop.  LOL.  What kind of camping is this anyway?!

Fun Visitor . . .Not So Fun Weather

Today we woke up to our favorite Dorry Lou Wharton pulling into the campground.  I always invite my mom up to spend a night while I’m camping alone and luckily, she’s usually able to come.  She’s only staying one night so she got up early and arrived about 9:30am.  I was up changing sheets and getting my room ready for her when I saw her pulling down the little road.  That announcement elicited whoops from the girls, especially Lily who loves when her family visits.  We all hurried and got dressed, then I made Chocolate Chips Scones for breakfast and the fun began.  I was afraid it would rain all day, but the morning and most of the afternoon were beautiful.  We took a walk, played Ladder Golf, did lots of yakking, and took the girls to the river again to play for a bit. 

Go Brinks!

Lily, letting you know that
she won 4 Ladder Golf
games in a row.

We ate an early dinner and had just finished up when the rain started.  It started slow, so I ran around and button downed the campsite, closing vents and windows, bringing things undercover.  Pretty soon the rain started coming down HARD, so we moved inside, got our jammies on, and started played games – Bananagrams, Racko.  It was fun, but as we were sitting at the table playing, Brinkley said, “There’s water leaking in from the window.”  I looked and sure enough.  There was water streaming off the top of the camper, down the side, and down a big window we have in the kitchen.  Well, the bottom of that window slides open and closed and the water stream was running right into that little window well.  Apparently something wasn’t sealing there because it was leaking in from that well.  It was raining really HARD and coming in pretty steady.  The girls sat there with towels absorbing the water.  They quickly soaked several towels and I was thinking that if it kept raining all night, I was going to quickly run out of dry towels.  I texted Kevin on my Kindle because we sometimes have WiFi, but the service was so spotty I never did get a good response.  I finally had an idea that if I draped towels over the top of the camper and hanging down the side, the towels would absorb the water and it would still drip off, but either a little away from the camper or at each corner, which would be away from the window.  So off I go into the rain.  I had to drag the neighbor’s picnic table over and use it as a ladder.  I got the towels up and it seemed to work . . . at least until the towels got so heavy they slid off onto the ground.  So, off I go again into the rain.  This time I didn’t leave so much overhang and also put some rocks on top to hold the towels down.  Not pretty, but success!!  Even with more rain during the night, we stayed dry.  What a blessing!

Hummingbirds!

We woke this morning to blue skies and probably a dozen hummingbirds flying outside our windows.  I always hang feeders and we always get birds, but never this many.  This morning they were humming, whistling and zipping around, fighting each other to get to the feeders.  We were having 6 or 7 at once buzzing around the feeders.  It was great fun and sometimes even a little annoying as they whizzed past our heads.

This evening our red feeder that had four places for the birds to drink ran out of sugar water.  The only one left was the weird purple one with flowers.  It only had one feeding perch.  One of the birds, a fat one, sat up against the opening for about 10 minutes, guarding it.  He wouldn’t let any of the other birds get to it.  I was able to get within about 1 foot with my camera to take a picture.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Finally it moved to the perch and sat there, eating once in a while, but mostly it was guarding.  Finally, it must have gotten its fill because it left.

  

THEN, this is the best part of all.  Lily stuck her finger up by the perch to see if it would come and sit on her finger to eat and IT DID.  She left her finger there and it came and ate and ate.  One would leave and another would come.  Sometimes two, right there by her finger and her head.  I got lots of pictures of Lily.  Then Brinkley did it and I got her on video.  It was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve seen.  Truly.

 

After lunch we went to the river again.  We found an even better spot with a nice flat sandy place for me to sit and currents and swimming holes for the girls. 

Rain drove us inside this afternoon.  Rain while we’re camping is one of our favorite things.  In fact, as I was popping popcorn Lily said, “Rainy days are one of my favorite camping memories”.  I always pop popcorn in a pan on the stove (the only time I do this is while we’re camping) and then we curl up on my bed and watch a movie.  Both girls were dying to watch Pirates of the Caribbean.  We let them watch it with us a few months ago and they think it’s the Bees Knees.  I’m a meanie though and wasn’t in the mood today so we’re watching Loves Enduring Promise.  Sounds like a total chick flick huh?  I know Kev is glad he isn’t here for this one (except I’ll tell you a secret – he loves Anne of Green Gables ; ).  It’s the second movie of Janette Oke’s series that starts with Love Comes Softly.  It’s lovely.

Ladder Ball & River Rompin'

Today was especially fun.  Last night we had some gray water back-up in our bathtub.  I know, super gross!  We don’t use the shower because Camperworld is a full-service campground of course, but I do store stuff in it.  Most of it is off the ground, but a few things sit right in the tub, so when the water backs up, it really freaks me out cause it is water from the bathroom and kitchen sink and anything in the tub gets wet!  Apparently, Kev hadn’t opened up the gray water tank to drain and in the 24 hours that we’d been here we’d filled our whole gray water holding tank.  Well, sorry Kev.  Washing dishes and hands takes a lot of dang water when you’re not paying for it.  : )  And seriously, I think our tank must be a little insufficient, don’t you agree?

Anywho, one of the things sitting in the tub was a Ladder Golf game that I’d bought and given to Kev for Christmas.  We’d forgotten we had it.  So, we pulled it out and played.  It was a lot of fun.  The four of us could pair up and play on teams.  We all loved it!  I highly recommend it.

Kev also took the girls out in the afternoon and gave them a four-wheeler driving lesson.  They thought they were the cat’s meow of course.  He let them go 13 whole miles per hour!  LOL

The Provo River runs through this campground.  There isn’t a very nice swimming hole, like there is in Coalville, so we’ve never done much wading or swimming.  Without a pool, we decided to give it try.  I’m too chicken to do much more than wading.  I’m old now and the idea of water snakes freaks me out a lot more than it did when I was young.  The girls get right in there and swim all around.  They had fun and want to do it again tomorrow.

Kev took me for an evening ride last night.  There’s a great ATV trail about a mile up the road at Cedar Hollow.  We haven’t done that in years.  Any other time we had the four-wheeler up here, I was afraid to leave the girls and go too far.  At 9 and 11 years old, they’re finally old enough.  Sad huh?  We had fun, but it’s scary being a passenger.  Kev drives much faster than 13 mph.  I’m wearing a helmet and pants next time!

Kev also left tonight.  He doesn’t have to work until tomorrow night, but I thought it might be a good idea for him to go home late tonight and try to stay up most of the night so he could hopefully get a good day’s sleep before going to work tomorrow night.  Lily cried.  We’ll all miss him, but just between you and me, I really like sleeping alone in this little double bed.  LOL.  I also don’t mind a few days of doing just what I want with the girls and not cooking bigger meals.  Kev knows and doesn’t mind.  It’s that attitude that gives him freedom to hunt, work weird work hours and go on SAR call-outs without much complaint from me.   It’s always good see him return though.   See you Sunday Love-Bird.  : )

 

Just a Day in the Life

So, I had to laugh this morning at the last sentence of yesterday’s post.  Kev and I have a vent that we keep open, right above our bed.  In the very early hours of this morning I was awakened by two very loud birds having quite the party above my head.  I swear they were sitting right on the vent screaming their wake up call.  Luckily they went away and I was able to go back to sleep.  Kev said he didn’t even hear them, so it must not have been as bad as I thought in my stupor of sleep.

Kev was still here today.  Yay!  His new work schedule for the whole next YEAR is Wed, Thurs, Fri, 9pm to 7am, and Saturdays 5pm to 3am.  I feel bad cause he’s going to be super tired on Wednesday night, but we’re sure going to love having him here for the next 3 days.

I was bummed when I first heard that the pools weren’t going to open this year (in an effort to save money), but I confess, it’s actually kind of nice.  Normally, right after lunch the girls are revved up and ready to swim.  Sometimes it feels kind of rushed cleaning up from lunch, gathering all the swim stuff.  It felt a lot lazier and relaxed today.  And they found plenty to do.  Riding bikes, reading, exploring the campground, playing games.  Tiff’s Terrific Camp store is back, which of course is glorious fun. 

After dinner tonight, Kev took both girls on a ride on the Four-Wheeler.  Having it up here this year has been a real treat.  We’ve owned it for several years for Search and Rescue and hunting, but haven’t brought it camping much.  We had the suburban and already pulled the camper trailer.  Pulling another trailer seemed like too much for the poor old ‘Burb to handle.  Over the winter though, we had to retire the poor, worn-out ‘Burb (don’t worry, it’s still alive and kicking - a Hispanic family down the road bought it and drove it to Mexico -true story) and bought a new(er) truck.  Yay!  It’s awesome and so now we can pull the four-wheeler right into the bed of the truck and be on our way.

While they were gone, I finished one book and started another.  Oh, the life.

Photo Bomber!

Lunchtime Puzzle.

We’re Back . . .And So Am I

Well, we arrived at the Camperworld in Woodland tonight and once we got here and settled a little, I told Kev, “It’s good to be back,” and his reply was, “Yeah, it feels like home”. 

I hope I’ll go back and catch up from last year, but just in case I don’t, we still camped last year, but one, I didn’t blog about it, and two, it wasn’t much of our traditional camping.  We had planned a family vacation to Northern California for the end of June.  It got pushed to the beginning of July because of problems with Kevin’s work (he got laid off, boo! But that’s a whole other story).  While in Cali we stayed in a hotel a few nights but also spent two nights camping right on the beach in a tent, which was really really fun. 

We got home from that and just a few days later left to camp at Camperworld.  We had decided to start in Coalville, spending a week there and then moving on to Woodland, which is our favorite.   In the middle of our week in Coalville, a friend and neighbor emailed and said, “Hey!  At the end of the month we’re going to camp on the beach in Carlsbad, California.  The campsite is paid for.  We’d love to have you join us.”  My first reaction was no way.  Kev was out of work.  Then I started thinking that realistically, if he had a job, we couldn’t go because he couldn’t’ get the time off.  The more we thought about it the better it sounded.  I’m the queen of frugal.  If the site was paid for then all we had was gas, food, and a few minor expenses.  So, we went.  It was glorious.  We had the BEST time.  I hope I’ve written about it because we LOVED it and hope to go again next summer. 

That trip though, cut our Camperworlding short.  We up just staying 10 days in Coalville and then went home to get ready for Carlsbad. 

But we’re here now and starting in good old Woodland, so if something is cut short, we won’t miss out on our favorite.  We’re actually on our longest adventure ever.  We’re staying one week in Woodland, one week in Coalville, then coming back to Woodland for the week of July 24^th.  Kamas has fun 24^th of July festivities and we don’t’ like to miss them.  Kev will go back and forth some and work and take care of our house and garden as usual.  He’s so great.

Camperworld has had its own problems as of late.  I don’t want to go into it too much, but they almost closed down, asked it’s members for a bunch of money to keep things going, lost a bunch of members, closed the pools for the summer, etc.  We spent a lot of time thinking about it in the spring trying to decide if we were going to stay with them.  We thought, we prayed, we talked.  We went back and forth.  No, let’s leave and camp on our own.  No, let’s stay.  As you can see, we ended up deciding to stay for at least now.  I can’t imagine that Camperworld is going to make it long-term.  Finances are just too much of a mess.  Lawsuits, dishonesty by the board.  I would almost be relieved if they just closed down.  But if they stay open, I can hardly stand the thought of them going on without us.  So, here we are.  And now that we’re here.  We’re happy about it.

OK – blah, blah, blah.  One more word about blogging before I close up for the night.  Someone asked me over the winter if I’d given up blogging or if I’d given up camping.  I assured him that I had NOT given up camping, but had real mixed feelings about blogging. Blogging takes up a lot of my time while camping.  I know realistically all I have is time while camping, which is why I love it.  I really try to limit time I spend on electronics though.  A big part of camping is the escape from Facebook, email and the phone.  WiFi up here sucks and I spend a lot of time typing and then trying to upload pictures and editing and typing and stuff.  I hate that.  Because of course in between waiting for things to load I’m checking FB and email and everything else, and my kids are saying, “Can’t we go to the pool.  Can’t we play a game.” And I’m like, “No, obviously my computer is more important.”  After giving a lesson in Primary however on journaling I can see the real value in writing these experiences.  I’ve decided that this year I’m going to try and type up the entries while camping, as I would a regular journal.  Then when I get home with a better computer and better WiFi, I’ll try uploading them.  We’ll see how that works. 

So, sleep well.  I sure will.  There is definitely something about this mountain air and my camper cocoon.