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.

Vintage Games, Nail Make-Overs, and Wishes

We play lots of games while camping.  One of the games we've been playing on this trip is Bonkers!!  Anyone remember this one?  I know my sister Beth will.  We spent hours playing this as girls.  I don't know if it can be called Vintage yet, but for me, it's a classic.  The girls are loving it too.  If you see it at DI or a yard sale, I highly recommend nabbing it.  In another year or two I'll have to teach them Payday, and then maybe Stop Thief!  Oh, the joy.

  

We also set up beauty shop and did our nails.  Last week we did toes and fingers.  Today, we decided that our fingers needed a little touch-up.  No better way to let your nails dry than laying in a hammock in the breeze reading a good book.  : )

 And finally, the girls made Wish Necklaces.  Add glitter and sparkly things to a little bottle, string it onto ribbon and there you have it.  If you want to make a wish, just rub the bottle, think real hard, and Voila!!  If only it were that simple, right?

Mountain Lions and Foxes and Bears, Oh My!!

We arrive tonight in Woodland.  Yay!!  I didn't really want to leave Coalville, but I'm really happy to be back here.  We have a totally new campsite in a totally different section of the campground.  Lily picked it.  I'm quite particular about campsites.  Hope we love this one.  If not, she's in trouble!!

The exciting thing about this post though is the hike Kev and the girls went on after we got here.  If you'll recall, 3 weeks ago when we were here, the whole family, including our guest Jacob, went on a big hike.  Kevin wanted to set up some trail cameras, for the purpose of stalking elk.  Well, tonight when we arrive back, he and the girls hiked back up to check the cameras.  The cameras are motion sensitive, so he sets them and it snaps a picture of anything that moves.  He's caught all sorts of wildlife on it before, but in this batch he hit the jackpot.  Oh there was your normal boring elk, there was a mama deer with her two fawns which were cute, but look what else was on it!!


Hello Foxey Loxey.

This bear was captured multiple times.  He's got to live really really close to where this camera was hung.

Mountain Lions.  Not just one, but two!!  If you look at the pic closely, on the left edge about half way up, you can see the tail of the 2nd one.  Holy crap!

I'm thinking that maybe Kev needs to be packing something a little faster to fire than a dang bow when he hunts!!

Moving Day

Unfortunately, we're on the move today.  I've enjoyed the week at Coalville - there's a lot to do here - and it might be nice to stay, but our week is up and Kevin needs to get us moved and settled before the work week starts for him tomorrow, so off we go.  We're headed back to Woodland, which really is my all around favorite.  Kevin will probably hunt there for the opener of the bowhunt next weekend, I hope.  It's nice to have him around on the weekends.

Kevin took the girls fishing and shooting this morning, and though we're starting to load up now, we may float the river one more time before we pull the party wagon out.  Peace Out City Dwellers.

This is our water cooler.  I made a cover for it to keep the sun off.  It evolved from there - belt, 4 heads.  You know.
We didn't leave it like this all week, btw.  That would be embarrassing.  ; )

Sun bathing by the river.

Lily found a dead snake (right), then made a paper snake (left). 
She's gross!