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?

Halloween

Okay, I am getting faster.  Check out all these photos I edited today.  I still have to load the dishwasher, but I got groceries, made some unpleasant phone calls, and did 3 loads of towels, too!

I wanted to test out the Black and White options, so I did the photos of my kids in B&W.  Their costumes weren't good candidates for color editing anyway.

Our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat/Chili Cook-off for Halloween.  There were some really fun costumes that I had a blast taking pictures of.  (My kids costumes were lame, and I'm not ashamed to admit that.) 

How adorable are these sisters... Cinderella and Ariel?

Are you wondering if Dean Cain dropped in to our humble little gathering?  Nope.  He's ours.  And his wife's costume was awesome too!

How cute are these two?  I seriously didn't know who they really were under the costumes until I asked someone.  They were so cute about giving me their best grumpy face for the picture.  Love it!

And here are two more adorable costumes... too bad Hill's tights weren't in the photo.. there was a funny story behind them.

And meet my new Photo Buddy,Lindsey.  Not only does she know how to use all these cool actions in photoshop, she also knows how to navigate the complicated menus in my camera and fix the settings in manual mode.  Awesome, huh?  And don't you love her baby boy's costume?  The tender mercy for the day was cool weather, so costumes were actually enjoyable to wear for once!

More awesome girls... I love it when ladies don't shy away from the camera.  And they didn't! 

After the chili feast, we retreated to the cars for trunk-or-treating.  This is what the back of my car looked like.  I brought the strobe light and the fog machine, but due to technical trouble, I couldn't get them going.  But our neighbors two cars over brought enough fog for all of us, so it all worked out!

Eric ran off with the camera while I passed out candy, so I only got a couple photos of trick-or-treaters, but I loved these two:

Extra "brownie points" if you can guess who this one is.  I LOVED her hair... it was so darling!