What Father's Day for my dear husband would be complete without a
campout?!? And, lately, what event of ANY kind would be complete without Boyd and the rest of the
Denison clan?
For Fathers Day this year we went up into the
Uinta National Forest near Strawberry Reservoir. It was BEAUTIFUL... and HOT.
The pictures say it all, pretty much... well, actually they don't. Most of the pictures are of me playing ladder ball... and funny enough I only played once! I tried to have
Ashlyn take a few pictures on the last day. It was the only day Anna and I were allowed to interrupt the boys playing with their balls (ahem)... ladder ball! ;0)
Denison's won the "ladder ball championship"... Anna quit cheating long enough to let me win one game of
Skipbo...
ok, so maybe she didn't cheat and I am just a crappy card player... the kids were playing
UNO together most of the weekend (well, 5 of them... Keri and Canyon really didn't take part in much more than taking the cards and making the rest of the kids mad). We did manage to go fishing (which we had to drive to... in all my camping experiences this was a first where we didn't camp at the same place we would fish)... Boyd was the only one to catch anything.
But it all started out as a spur of the moment thing. The
Denison's had it all planned out, and we decided to crash in on them the morning they were leaving. So Anna and I talked, planned the meals (I had the main dinner food), and we would leave around 11... make that 12... make that 1:30 (
Denison's weren't going to wait for us anymore)... 3....(
Denison's make their last call to let us know they are just about at camp) 4..... 5:30...
ok, so we'll leave in the morning. Poor
Denison's!!!! They had to eat fruit,
lunchmeat and cheese for dinner!!!!!!! I had the bread too (because Anna was supplying the junk food that
CJ won't let us get)!!!
CJ... not me... its
alllll on him....
ppromised we'd be up there by 11 the next morning. WE ACTUALLY MADE IT... and 10:53 am! I told him we should stay and sit in the truck for the last 7 minutes, but he was so excited to be early he had to make sure they knew! We had a very nice day... THEN BEDTIME!! The only reason we went up there was because the wonderful, fabulous
Denison's said there was enough room in the trailer to sleep the women and children, and the guys could sleep in a tent. At about 3 am Anna and I realized that we were both still awake, having been crowded out of our beds... listening to restless children sleep... AND we each had moved our oldest kids to the floor (I was awake because
Ashlyn's place on the floor was right in front of the bathroom door and I was envisioning a MAJOR catastrophe in that... so I stayed awake to prevent it).
Thankfully after we both vented about our own personal sleeping trials, we fell asleep for about 4 hours before the kids started waking up!
But the trip ended successfully... everybody had a great time... and we're all (with the exception of Anna who would really rather
not be out in the wild to begin with... we love you Anna) ready to head back up to the mountains. I promised her on our way out of there that the next time we would have our own sleeping provisions and there would be no shared meal on the first night!!
Anyway... after all that... here are the pictures...
Ashlyn and Preston 4-wheeling
Canyon found the
frisbee again and spent most of his time playing with that... and his big green John Deere tractor we had to bring along... along with his Thomas and Friends trains
this is Keri... ADORABLE!!!
OTTER POPS!!!
CJ gettin' tricky... 3 balls at once!
with this form... how could we have lost? (beginners luck I'm sure!) And yes...
someone had to wear the cowboy hat!
Anna was always very intense while playing!
So was Boyd!! ... you two really need to learn to lighten up!!!
Juuuust kidding!
Kailey, Allie and Mallory WERE there too... they were involved in many intense hours of
UNO ... I guess, because we didn't get any pictures of them... sorry girls.
It is a wonderful book for anybody who has anything to do with teaching children (parents, teachers, whatever!). Trish is headed to a seminar to learn how to give assemblies on the topic. I am suggesting to everyone to look at this website (click on the title of the book... it is the actual link). We are becoming "bucket fillers" in our home... and Aunt Trish and Aunt Shelley... having you visit filled our buckets to the tippy tippy top... I think some of it even probably overflowed!
