We're Home!!!

This is a long one....

Well, we did it. We went camping. It was fun. Since it was a family reunion for one of the days it was a little busy and crowded, but other than that - what a great time! It was so nice to spend time with family away from cell phones and email and TV and everything else. Although I don't know that either my kids or I have ever been that dirty before. Yuck. I think the highlight of the trip for the kids was the horses. My cousin, Dan and his wife, Amanda brought up their 4 horses and they let our kids ride them. You should have seen Abby! She LOVES horses! She had never ridden one before and I don't think I've ever seen her smile as big as she did when she was on that horse (his name was "Red"). She was just about crying, she was so happy! Adam and Amber enjoyed it, too but Abby was absolutely thrilled.

Thanks Dan and Amanda!

We also had a great time four wheeling. The campground we have always gone to ever since I was a little girl is called Iron Springs. It's about 1/2 way between Vernal and Flaming Gorge in Ashley National Forest. It's very pretty, but it's always been pretty quiet and deserted. Not anymore! There were so many people up there! But there are tons of four-wheeling trails and we each got our turn. Of course, I only caught one picture of anyone on the machines and it turned out bad because it was shot from inside a trailer, but oh well!

Allie kind of had a hard time. She just wandered and didn't like it when she had to stay close. She also had a hard time sleeping, so she ended up sleeping with Ben and I which meant that we didn't get a ton of sleep. She also got sick one night, but was fine the next morning. We felt so bad for her! But, luckily she was okay the next day and able to have fun. We tried to get her on the horses, but she'd have none of it. She loved to pet them and she loved going and finding flowers. One of her favorite things was finding the white dandelions and blowing them. And sadly, another of her favorite things was playing in the rocks. Unfortunately the rocks were right next to the outhouse (it's not like they were in them!), so we made sure we cleaned her up really well after she did that sort of playing!

Guess what else? Jennie got tan! If you know me, this is a huge deal because I was made the whitest of the whites. But, now I'mthe brownest of the whites. (At least until it peels!) This is a bad picture, but it's all I've got! You can hardly even tell that I have a tan (and it's a farmer's tan at that, but hey, tan is tan to me!)

After camping we came back to Salt Lake for our niece's 1st birthday party. She was very cute! Tyler and Karina planned a great party with dinner, presents and a pinata for the kids. It was so much fun! It was nice to see Ben's family and spend a little bit of time with them, too. But, we had to get back home to our puppies (thanks, Miller's for watching them!). It's nice to be home and have closets and dressers and our own beds and running water, but boy was that a great vacation! I think we'll definately make it a tradition from now on.