Camping

I've been so busy with the canning. Ugh. I finally finished my pears on Friday. I was silly and thought I could do 5 boxes of them! With a newborn. Remind me to not do the canning deal when I have new babies. My mom and husband helped out so much. We finally got it all done. Some of them were for my mother-in-law. When Kannon was out of work she offered to pay me to put up her fruit. So, we did a box each of peaches and pears for her. And when I was sick of canning and ran out of bottles, we dried the last little bit. I was so excited to put it all away and have my kitchen back, that I forgot to count how many we did - just know that it was alot!

Thursday night, as Kannon and I were going to sleep, he said, "I have a favor to ask you. I kind of wanted to go camping this weekend." Yay! That was what I'd been thinking all week. I hadn't gotten to do anything fun like that this whole summer. So, we picked a spot - Fort Churchill - and I spent half of Friday packing up for a camping night.

The kids were really excited, too. I was sort of frustrated that it took us so long to get out of the house. We had to stop at Walmart and get marshmallows and a new bed for us. We heard "are we there yet?" and "when are we going to get there?" the whole way! Fort Churchill had a really nice campground, with a table, fire pit and water at every spot. We got the fire going first and then set up the tent. Everyone helped, although Ben and Sarah also spent a fair amount of time exploring. It was dark soon, and we ate dinner - perfectly cooked tin foil dinners! I was so pleased. They usually burn or don't get cooked enough. I had boiled the potatoes a little bit before putting them in with the rest of the food. Everything turned out perfect, and you know it always tastes better outside! (I could have remembered the ketchup, though.)

We also roasted our marshmallows. Those tasted really good, too. Then it was time for a potty run before bed. Well, I thought I knew where the outhouse was. So, the kids and I headed off with a flashlight. Lo and behold, what I'd seen was some old boarded up building. Since I wasn't sure where the real one was, and I didn't feel like disturbing the other campers with my flashlight, we headed back to camp and used the bushes. I know - gross. In the morning we found the potty - only a few yards away from the building we found!

We spent some time admiring the stars. They were incredible. It was fun to try and recognize some of the constellations. We had trees covering almost half the sky, but what we could see was so great. Ben was the first to go to bed. Then, we got tired of looking and the rest of us went to bed, too. It was a fitful night for me. I had to get up and feed the baby twice, cover up the kids a few times, the coyotes woke us a couple times and then there were the crazy drunk people. They were so obnoxiously loud. And it made me nervous to be asleep. They were up a lot earlier than I thought drunk people would get up.

We did a quick morning. I took care of the baby while Kannon started the pancakes. I finished the pancakes while he started taking down the tent. We cleaned up and went for a little hike.

They had a trail right by the campground so we started out on that and ended up losing it. Luckily we were right by the campground. Then we found another trail and took that one for awhile.

Ben reading the sign about the cottonwood trees.

After our hikes we went to the Fort Churchill Visitors Center and looked around. Kannon and I were tired and didn't want to hike anymore, so we didn't go down and see the ruins up close. It's really neat to see what's left of this military station, though.

Here's proof that I was actually there!

We stopped in Silver Springs on our way back, and checked out a mobile home "store." That was fun. We found an almost perfect home! Benjamin called it the heaven house. It just needed one more bedroom. We stopped in at a couple yard sales and then came home to unload and unwind. We all took naps, too!

That evening was an Elder's Quorum Ice Cream Social. I really enjoyed that. Not just the ice cream, but the socializing part!

I taught Relief Society on Sunday, which went well, and after naps we spent the afternoon with some friends in our ward. It was a great time to get to know them better and the kids loved feeding their animals. We can't wait to go back, another day, and ride the horse.