Annual Family Camping Trip

Truth? I kind of dread going camping sometimes.  I must be getting old.  I just know that I am going to have to do a ton of packing and a ton of unpacking, I know that I'm not going to sleep well for a few days and that I'm going to smell like a campfire for a week no matter how many times I wash my hair.  And you'd be amazed at how much laundry 3 days of camping can produce. So yes, sometimes I feel anxious as Troy's family camping trip draws near on the summer calendar.  But remind me to suck it up because guess what -  we always have a great time.  The kids love being with their cousins, I love my brothers and sisters-in-law, I love my in-laws, and the mountains of Utah are beautiful, rain or shine.   I'm very happy to report that although rain was predicted for the weekend, we experienced almost no rain and enjoyed sunny cool weather.  No, I didn't sleep well, but I sure loved being with family.

Some highlights

Sadly the fishing was rather on the slim side this year.  Troy and I took the big kids out on the canoe for a very long time with no catches.  Stomper was especially disappointed so later Troy took him out again and very patiently paddled him around until he caught a little fish, which he generously shared with his fish-loving sisters.

Something for which we had some very lucky timing was the Tour of Utah, a bike race with stages all over our beautiful state.  The stage taking the bikers from Evanston, Wyoming to Kamas, Utah happened to take place during our camping trip and the route was right down the highway by our campground.  It was really fun to run up to the road for a little while and watch these amazing athletes go by at breakneck speeds.  It's hard to capture the speed and excitement as they and all of their support vehicles raced by, but it was amazing to see.  Equally amazing was the thought that many of these guys had been in France for that little tour there just about two weeks before.

Stomper did some serious whittling.  Lots of big sticks were made into smaller pointy sticks.  He was very proud of his blisters.  He earned them!