Camping Trip #3

Three camping trips in 6 weeks is almost too much for this city girl. But, they are fun and the kids have a blast. We won't have another camping trip for 11 months and I'm okay with that. But, I love these camping trips. I love that we all unplug and spend time together for a few days. I love the trees, the fresh air and the stars at night. It's a great way to spend a weekend.

Almost all of our friends have RV's, but we are fine in our tent. It takes us an hour to get everything set up and an hour to get everything taken down. Our tent cost $150 and should last several seasons. That's about as much as we want to spend on these trips. Plus, we love the time at the end of the night when it's all 5 of us in the tent together snuggling under sleeping bags and blankets. We talk about our days, our favorite things and end with a prayer for God to watch over us and for bears to stay away. Hey, every little bit helps!

We got to Payson and got the tent all set up.


Then, it was time to relax.


Gwynne, this is the chair your birthday money bought. David is too long for all of these type of chairs, but he likes them. We put a pool noodle where his ankles hit the bar.


Our friends brought their dogs and Noah really likes them. Although, this pen is a nice idea if Noah misbehaves too!




Noah was really good with the dogs and "helped" take them on a walk.


We took a little day trip to a local fish hatchery. This is where they grow all the fish that they use to stock local lakes.


This was some kind of trout. I was totally grossed out. I hate fish. Well, unless I'm scuba diving and they are pretty.


Each bin held different size trout. This one had smaller ones in it and the guy said there was 24,000 trout in there.


Here are some of the girls.


We found a watering hole along the creek and the kids went fishing. Guess what we found? More crawdads! We can't escape these things. Mark is holding one up for the kids to see.


It was a little chilly, but it was hot out so the kids didn't mind.


They made their way up the creek.


Here are all the kiddos.


More swimming.




Then, it was time for an afternoon nap. Don't they look cute?


Noah sleeps so well on his Dad like that. Literally, he'll be out in seconds.


The kids had a secret spy group going on.


The next day we tried to find a different watering hole. But, we haven't had any real rain here in 6 months. We drove around and around and found dry creek after dry creek. We ended up at the same spot we were the day before. The kids didn't mind. The girls were making up a Frozen dance.


The highlight for Ben was driving to the bathrooms.


Noah had to get in on the driving action too.


The boys dressed up. Ben's costume has turned into capri pants, but he doesn't mind.


It was another great camping trip with family and friends.

Now, we leave for the lake in Idaho, sightseeing in Banff and to the beach in Vancouver in 7 days!

Driving

I have lots of camping pics to share, but I'm busy working and other stuff. In the meantime, Ben's highlight was driving to the bathroom. There was an outhouse about a 2 minute walk from our camp. Or we could drive to the main facilities on the camp and we had flushing toilets. It took about 3 minutes to drive there, so I bet you an guess what I opted for. Ben got to drive to the toilets. It was the highlight of his day.


Then Noah had to do it. The kids have never been so excited to take a poop.

Camp Tontozona

This was our first experience with pampered camping. Well, it's hardly camping at all when you bring your iphone charger and a blow dryer. But, we were in a bare bones cabin, had to bring our own towels and we spent 95% of the day outside. It was camping minus the tent, but plus a flushing toilet and shower! Whatever you call it, it was FUN!

This camping trip was with a big group of our friends from Phoenix. Most we knew, but there were a few new families that we've never met. We got there and it was warm. Camp Tontozona is where the ASU football teams practices off season. They rent it out the rest of the time. It's used for all sorts of camps and what not for kids. They turned on the sprinklers on the big practice football field. The kids got to cool down.




Then, Noah tried to come up the little hill to David and he kept slipping on the mud. He was so mad. His hands were covered and he was about to cry. But, he went over and rinsed off and he was fine.


Me and my bestie.


These were kids we just met that ere part of our group. The kids all played so well together.



Aunt Pam and Em chillin' on a swing.



This little girl named Maggie and Noah became fast friends. She said she wanted to marry him.


At night, the kids realized that the little well was full of crawdads or crydaddies as Noah called them.


They were obsessed with these things.


And they caught a few.


We went back to our cabin that night. This is what it looked like.


And the toilet overflowed. Actually it was a block in the main line and in a row of 4 cabins, 3 had clogged toilets. We had to switch cabins at 10:00 at night. I wasn't happy, but the kids thought it was an adventure. Yeah, whatever.

In the morning, we headed to the lodge which 3 families were sharing. We opted to rent our own cabin to have a little space. We did all the cooking at the lodge though and everyone brought something. These two guys are nicknamed Top Chef and cooked almost every meal for us.


This is a pic of the lodge. Emily's trying to find the crawdads.


We hiked down to the watering hole.


Nice photo bomb Colby!












The kids swam across.


Afterwards, it was time to relax in the hammock.



We played baseball, frisbee, soccer. You name it. Here's Ben smacking the ball.


Then, it was time to eat the crawdads. I was not about to partake in that, but David tried it. They tried to say it tasted like lobster. Yeah, I don't think so.


And I kiss that mouth...



Noah was not about to try it.


Not even when Maggie tried to persuade him.


Emily really wanted to go back to the creak. But, the spot we were at in the morning was a good 30 minutes of up and down over rocks. So, we just played in the creak by our camp.


The afternoons were spent having happy hour and appetizers and listening to our friends son play some guitar.


It was a great trip. We did get one big group photo, but I haven't got that from our friend yet. I think there was 30 of us in all. We had a great time. The only thing we would do differently next time is make it 3 nights instead of 2. We decided we will all go every year the weekend after Father's Day.

And you know the sign of a good trip is when one of the kids looks like this 20 minutes after you leave.


And now we leave for another camping trip in 24 hours. I can hardly keep up.