Ward Camp Out

Since our dear friend became the Bishop, our ward has had an annual campout every summer.  The reason behind this has to do with the fact that he is the father of all girls and they love to camp.  Every time he left to go on a Priesthood campout, they would get jealous.  So, the DR2 "Everyone is Invited" Ward Campout was born!  The last two years we've reserved spots at Long Valley.  This is the same place the Stake does Girls Camp, and it's one of my most favorite places in the whole state of Arizona.  

Bless Kyle's heart for having hot dogs.... Brayden would NOT eat what they served for dinner.  If it hadn't been for Kyle, Brayden would have gone to bed VERY hungry!

We were both nervous and excited to bring Max this year.  We knew he would love Long Valley, but we were worried that sleeping in the tent with us (and not in a confined space or kennel) might be a dicey proposition.  

He found a comfy spot between Megan and Ian and I made sure he was covered up with a blanket for the night.  All was well until Jeff's dog Husker, a cute, but naughty, Jack Russell Terrier, escaped from his tent at 5 a.m. and started making the rounds to "visit" other tents where dogs were sleeping.  Let's just say Husker made a few enemies that morning!

Eric was in charge of the kids Geocache activity, so he and I went out for a walk to plot all the points and hide the treasure.  Long Valley doesn't look this beautiful during girls camp... it's still too dry up there from the spring.  But after six weeks of summer thunderstorms, the wildflowers were everywhere!

And so were the butterflies.... they were huge and not afraid of people at all.  When they landed on you, it felt like they were biting you a little bit.  Super crazy!  (Maybe Ian should be a hand model?)

Kate brought up fun games for the kids to play, but adults were getting into this one too... How many Oreos can you stack on your forehead before they fall.  I think Eric and Megan and one other person all tied at nine.  Truth be told, I think Eric had the unfair advantage with that chair.  It's a natural recliner!

This view always reminds me of Girls Camp.  It's the road that leads to the area where the YCL camp always is.  But now it will always remind me of my last campout with the DR2 ward.  Since we moved here to AZ over seven and a half years ago, we've been in this same ward.  And these people have become my family.  Three weeks ago, we were moved into the G3 ward.  Overall it's a HUGE blessing for us, as the new ward has a much bigger Young Men's/Young Women's program.  Rumor has it that there are 47 YM in our new ward... SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!  More than half of our DR2 ward came with us over to G3, so we haven't been thrust into a new ward where we don't know anybody, but we are still sad about being pulled away from some dear friends that stayed behind in the other ward.  Boundary changes are always bittersweet, but I plan to make it my personal agenda to push for a G3 ward campout up at Long Valley every year.  It's such a fun activity!  Can you tell I love camping?

I Heart Camping

Very few things in life get me as excited as a camping trip.  I grew up 2 hours from Lake Tahoe and 2 hours from Stinson Beach.  Given a choice... I will pick the mountains over the beach just about anytime. 

(Unless it involves a beach in Maui.)

Friday night we headed to the mountains to have a campout with our Church group.  It was a lot of fun, even though we were the last ones to arrive and had to set up in the dark.  (We are getting quite experienced at that, too.)  Thank goodness some friends of ours took our tarp up and saved us a spot for our tent, so we didn't have to search around in the dark for a place to put it.

 Saturday morning was cold and gorgeous up in the Arizona mountains.  Who knew parts of AZ could kinda look like Tahoe?  I love it, even though it makes me homesick!  Brayden and I didn't get off to a fab start on Saturday morning.  He was crying and I was irritated that he woke up at 6 a.m. crying when Eric and the big kids didn't come to bed until almost midnight.  They were having too much fun playing Capture the Flag out in the woods.  (One bad thing about a Ward Campout... your nearest neighbors can hear everything going on in your tent in the late night or early morning hours.)  Let's just say I was not my finest "mothering self" and they heard it all.  But, they are the kind of friends who don't judge those kind of things... they were probably just thinking, "glad it's not me...."

The boys enjoyed playing football with some of the men...

Making the trek to the porta-potties...

I thought this was funny...

A seasoned scout... he slept outside and slept right through most of the morning noise.  I wish my kids would sleep this heavy on camping trips!

Megan helping out with the little tykes... By the way, what do you think of her "bangs"?

I love this little girl, and this look she gave me was so hilarious.  But it speaks volumes about her character.... she's got sass!

The breakfast crew... they were awesome... they cooked, served and cleaned up.  All while the women sat around and gabbed and kept an eye on the kids and the fire.

This little beauty proves it's never too soon to take them camping.  She was an angel the whole time!

Brayden got the award for the dirtiest kid.  He was covered in dirt and filthy, which was made worse by his meltdown in the tent, which produced a multitude of boogers to cement the dirt into the skin.

Campfire art... the kids figured out they could heat up the marshmallow roasting sticks, and then use them to make designs in the foam plates... some of them turned out really cool.

As everyone was packing up, I became very sad... I didn't want to leave the beauty and the cold air to head home again to the triple-digit-heat of home.  I was hoping to stall our departure as long as possible, but the men were motivated by the promising afternoon of BYU football on TV.  I guess 24 hours in the mountains is better than nothing, right?

Right.

My New Favorite Camping Location

The last time Eric and I came to Sedona it was winter time.  We didn't have a lot of time to spend, but we quickly found out that it wasn't a super kid friendly town.  Think of it like the Santa Cruz of Arizona (without the ocean).  Lots of hippies and tree huggers.  (Not that those are bad things to be... but you don't find a lot of either in the desert, generally speaking.) 

I was thrilled beyond words when I was able to make a camping reservation on the banks of the infamous Oak Creek Canyon.  As luck would have it, we got the best spot in the campground.  Literally.  There are only 19 sites, and some of them are terrible.  But ours was perfect!  Just 100 feet from our tent was the creek, with these spectacular views.

On top of that, we had a Dairy Queen a mile down the road, and Slide Rock State Park a mile up the road.  How can you beat that?  If you are super nice, I might even share the info for the campground so you can visit this little piece of paradise too. 

If we hadn't had such limited time, and if we hadn't just spent hours in the creek a mile upstream at Slide Rock, my kids would have been playing in the water all afternoon.  The creek was deserted.  They did have fun watching the tiny fish (or tadpoles, not sure which) nibble on their feet in the water.  It was hard to leave this beautiful place and go home.  I already want to plan a trip back up there next summer.

On our way home, we had to stop by this place.  Eric wanted to replenish his hot sauce supply (and this store has an amazing collection to choose from) and I wanted to take pictures of all the cool signs in the parking lot. 

Next summer, a trip to Oak Creek Canyon will be on the top of the priority list.  Anyone want to join us?

Girls Camp: Long Valley

I have been trying to get to Girls Camp for years.  I LOVE going camping, and I love hanging out with the teenage girls in our church... so what better way to spend a few days, right? 

I've also been dying to visit Long Valley.  It's a piece of property our church owns up in the mountains on the Mogollon Rim.  (Mogollon is pronounced Mon-gee-on).  It's at 8000 feet, in beautiful ponderosa pine country with no cactus in sight!  Yeah!

Proof I was there!  This was the first night, while I still had good hair... thank goodness the first day was the hottest, so I could spend the rest of the time with baseball caps or beanies on my head and be comfortable!

This gully runs the whole length of the valley.  It's really beautiful!

I loved being at camp with Megan and all the other young ladies from our local congregations.  We have some fabulous girls in our ward and stake.  I was so impressed with their testimonies, their leadership skills and their spirit of fun and creativity.  I loved seeing their "true selves".... make-up-less, cell-phone-less and relaxed... just up there to have fun.  I am hoping to weasel my way into the pool for the 4th year hike next year... now that would be even better!

R & R?

I was kidding myself if I thought a trip to the Grand Canyon with a 4 year old boy would consist of Rest or Relaxation. But we love camping, so it's always worth it!

Weather wise, it was cold, overcast and windy quite often. No rain or snow, but lots of clouds. Doesn't exactly make for good scenery shots... It seemed like the clouds really muted the gorgeous colors of the canyon. I did get a couple that I like, but no sunset photos. What a bummer!

I did take lots of people shots and animals... oh, the animals. Of course, you have to be quick to get the animals, so they aren't the greatest photos, but we saw a ton of wildlife! And the kid shots... well, just keep in mind that everyone is wearing camping clothes. Which as you know, often are worn out and mismatched. If I had known I was going to be pointing my camera so much at the kids this trip, I would have been more discriminate in their clothing choices! (And even though I can't seem to find a single picture where Ian isn't scowling, he really did have fun!) Here are some random highlights and pictures I liked from the trip:

Fall Colors... only yellow, but still - proof of fall! Yeah!

Here is one of the two canyon shots I am happy with. The clouds are probably the most interesting part!

This tree kept all the kids entertained for about 30 minutes... and better yet, it was 15-20 feet from the edge. We could actually look over the edge and enjoy the scenery for a few minutes without worrying about a certain someone falling off the edge!

A half smile, but not the real deal:

This is a great shot of Taylor... don't get a lot of genuine smiles out of him for the camera much anymore either!

I just love the pose Brayden is making in this one... He often says, "I'm King of the World!"My girlie girl... she lived with this beanie hat on the entire trip!Squeezed together on the shuttle bus. It was way more crowded this year in October than it was 3 years ago when we visited with Jeff and Molly's family.This is the other canyon shot I like. One of these trips, I'm going to have to get some sunrise photos. That means getting up and hiking to the canyon edge before the sun comes up. Hmmm... maybe not...
The kids with Grandma and Grandpa... waiting to see if the sunset will be worthwhile. It was a dud!

A perfect tree for lots of kids to hang out in. Darn you Ian... can't you give me one smile?

Highlight for the boys... roasting marshmallows for smores.

This is my favorite photo from the whole trip and it took me about 10 tries and 3 different camera settings to get it. Plus the looks on their faces is priceless!