Camping with Cousins

A few weeks ago, Jay and Lisa invited us to go camping with them in American Fork Canyon--now how could we turn that down?  Camping is fun, but camping with cousins is exponentially more so!

We arrived Thursday afternoon--Jay and Lisa were already there, as were some of our favorite newlyweds, Skylar and "Big" Jordan.  We set up our tent, roasted some hot dogs for lunch, and did some exploring around the campsite. 

  

 The view from our site.  Not bad!   

 What Ben looked like when we arrived. . .

 . . .and what he looked like about five minutes later.  Between enjoying free rein over the snacks and falling down every few minutes, the poor guy was utterly filthy.

 The big kids spent most of the afternoon riding bikes in an open field just down the trail from our campsite.  Not long after we'd arrived, a man pulled up with a horse trailer.  The kids watched him with great interest as he saddled up his horse and peppered him with questions about. . .um, horsemanship?  He very patiently answered all their questions, and then he offered to let them ride the horse.  The kids were ecstatic!

  

Elizabeth & Anna

"Little" Jordan & Madi

Anna & Ella

After everyone got a chance to ride Sugar Baby, our new cowboy friend strapped on his leather chaps and we bid him farewell as they headed down the trail.  Jay and Big Jordan took the kids on a mini-excursion in the Jeep while Jared drove back down to the mouth of the canyon (to fill up our water cooler and make a phone call), and Lisa and I enjoyed some peace and quiet back at camp, getting dinner ready.  Everyone arrived back at camp just in time for dinner, after which Skylar and Big Jordan left for home and the rest of us busted out the marshmallows and roasting sticks.

 Anna and Daddy enjoying some dinner. (You'll see a theme here;  I think Anna's favorite part of camping might just have been the food!)

Roasting marshmallows around the, uh, propane-powered fire ring. (Campfire restrictions had gone into place just the day before we arrived, so no actual campfires were allowed.  Thankfully Jay came well-equipped with propane and propane accessories!)

Friday morning started with a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, after which we packed up for a day at Tibble Fork Reservoir.

Jordan and Anna enjoying some hot cocoa

Ben, taking in the grandeur.

 

"Bacon for breakfast?  I LOVE camping!"

 Tibble Fork Reservoir

The kids had so much fun at the reservoir, playing in the mud, splashing in the water, and going for rides in the inflatable raft Jared brought.  Jordan even caught a fish!  As they were rowing back to shore, Lisa assured us that he'd want to put the fish back in the water like he'd done on past fishing trips--but nope, Jordan was insistent that he was going to keep this one and EAT it.

Little mud monster

Big mud monster

Jordan shows off his catch

Elizabeth, Anna, and Madi--dirty and happy

When we got back to camp, the kids jumped on their bikes again--and pretty soon, our cowboy friend pulled up again in his trailer. . .this time with another horse, Fancy.  Again the kids gathered around to watch him saddle up and to take a ride.  I didn't get any pictures, but Fancy lived up to her name;  she was a very pretty horse!

That night, Jay and Lisa treated us to a delicious Dutch oven dinner.  Skylar and Big Jordan came back up, this time with their tent to spend the night--and so did Aaron and Joni and their boys.  Jared's parents came for dinner, along with Emily, who'd just flown in for the weekend from California, and our other favorite newlyweds Sarah and Christian.

 I think Big Jordan is trying to blow out a flaming marshmallow in this picture. . .

After a few rounds of s'mores, we said goodbye to our dinner guests and settled down to bed, only to find that the people who'd set up camp next to us weren't tired in the least. . .they must've stayed up till midnight talking loudly and singing, among other things, the theme to Gilligan's Island.  (We ended up getting our revenge, though;  not long after they all quieted down, baby Noah decided he did NOT like camping and began crying. . .and crying. . .and crying.  Poor little guy! Joni ended up packing up the boys in the wee hours of the morning to take them home in the hopes that little Noah would get some sleep.)

We got home on Saturday afternoon, just in time to get ready for Grandpa Pugh's birthday party that evening.  What a blast this trip was!  We returned home dirty, tired, sunburned, and covered in bug bites--all the marks of a great camping trip.  The girls had so much fun, in fact, that they spent the whole ride home discussing what they wanted to do on their NEXT camping trip. . .

   

Anna's 5th Birthday

We celebrated Anna's 5th birthday earlier this month.  Jared was out of town on her actual birthday, which we celebrated with a little "girls night out":  We went to Amy's house, where she stayed with Ben and Trevor while I took all the girls to see "The Lorax" and get dinner at Chick-fil-a.  (Still not sure who got the better end of that deal. . .) Then on Sunday, when Jared was home, we had the family over for cake, ice cream, presents, and a pinata.

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Anna, as usual, had VERY specific instructions for her cake:  pink, with light pink frosting and HOT pink frosting around the edges, and a big butterfly on top: 

The babies were totally digging the Tootsie pops from the pinata:

 

Happy #5, Anna Bear!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to the #1 man in my children's lives. . .

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

  

 

. . .although these guys are a close second:

 

  

 

 "It's only when you grow up, and step back from him, or leave him for your own career and your own home—it's only then that you can measure his greatness and fully appreciate it. Pride reinforces love." -- Margaret Truman

Summer, So Far

Backyard, Then and Now

We did it!  We have a YARD!

Well, we've always had a "yard".  But now it's starting to look like a YARD.  Allow me to explain.  First, cast your mind back about five years. . .

2007:  Jared comes home one night and excitedly tells me about the house he drove past on his way home from work.  He shows me the MLS listing and I agree to go look at it, along with a few other houses in the neighborhood.  When we stop at the house Jared was raving about, I suddenly understand his excitement:  it has a second garage in the backyard.  Long story short, we buy the house and Jared eagerly waits for the snow to melt so he can get to work.  It quickly becomes apparent that the garage is not salvageable.  So, with a little help from Jocke and Dan, down it goes.

 

2008:  The garage has been leveled, and now we get to work removing the overgrown shrubs along the west and south.

(Pay no attention to me looking goofy in the foreground--check out that tired little fence behind me. . .)

Along the south, as we remove the shrubs we realize this fence is going to need to be replaced soon.  As we pull out the bushes along the west fenceline, we realize that a) our yard is several feet higher than our dear neighbor's, and b) now that we've removed those shrubs, there's nothing to keep our yard from sliding right into hers. We need a retaining wall.  So we buy a tractor:

(Or, wait, did we buy the tractor earlier, and use it to pull out the shrubs?  I can't remember anymore. . .)

Jared finishes building the retaining wall *just* in time--the cement truck comes on a cold and rainy November morning, and with some more help from Jocke and Dan, the wall is completed.

2009:  Jared buys a backhoe attachment for the tractor and the real work begins:  digging out the western half of our yard and putting in a rock retaining wall.  It takes all of this summer and part of the next.  At this point I admit that the tractor/backhoe really was a good purchase--how else do you move tons (literally, tons) of dirt and boulders the size of small appliances?

2010:  At some point Jared takes a closer look at the foundation from the second garage and has the sad realization that the foundation just isn't fixable.  So he builds a new one.  It also makes a really hand repository for the extra dirt and rocks we have to move around.

Future home of the Man Lair

 2011:  Our goal for this year is to install sprinklers and hydroseed to restore the lawn that has been pretty much massacred by the past 3 years of work;  however, those plans are waylaid when a winter windstorm knocks down the fence along the south side.  Sure, we could have just fixed the section that fell over. . .but we might as well take advantage of the complete lack of lawn and replace the whole thing. 

 

 

In fact, while we're at it, we figure we ought to install the raised patio we were talking about, too.  No sense in putting in a nice new lawn and then tearing it up the next year with trailers and wheelbarrows, right?

 Road base for the patio foundation

  Our redneck "dump truck"

I insist on laying some of the pavers, explaining that it's a nice change for me to work on a job that, unlike laundry and dishes and mopping floors, will stay "done" for longer than a day. 

The patio takes longer than anticipated (oh, but isn't it beautiful?) and before we can finish the sprinklers, it's late fall.  Still no lawn, but I get a consolation prize of some nice raised beds for next year's vegetable garden.

2012:  Facing the prospect of another yardless summer as we wait for a seeded lawn to grow, I look into sod--and wouldn't you know it, it's not nearly as pricey as we'd feared.  After some final grading and finishing touches to the sprinklers, we're ready.  With some help from Jocke (again!), Jay, and Aaron, the grass is down in just a few hours.

Ben watches the work from his perch

And voila, our backyard is transformed from the neighborhood's best dirt bike course to our kids' new favorite place to play.  We even had enough sod to patch up the front lawn, which was looking pretty sorry after we had to dig out and replace the water main in February when it broke during some basement renovations.  (But don't get me started on all that.  The front yard is a story for another post.  The basement. . .well, that deserves its very own blog.)