Camping at Lake Pleasant

I had surgery at the end of September, and several weeks later, before I was completely recovered, some friends invited us to go camping with them. I had to convince Keith that I was well enough to go, but I really wanted to get out of the house and it sounded like a fun trip, so we went. I had lifting restrictions, so Keith had to do most of the packing and setting up of our tent and stuff. :)

Now apparently I am just not smart, because even though we were camping at Lake Pleasant, I did not realize this meant swimming and water skiing. I mean, it was cold! So we were the only family that didn't pack swimming suits for the kids. I sure felt bad. So they just jumped in with their clothes on. The water was so freezing, and the adults wisely stayed out.

 After we packed up our campsite, we went over to a beach and the Wray's took people out in groups on their boat.

 Finley and Alora collected seashells.

Keeley went for a boat ride.

Isaac wanted to try skiing--he made a good attempt, but wasn't able to get up.

Here is the front of our boat.

After trying the ski's, they brought out a knee board thing, and Isaac had lots of fun riding it.

 He didn't go up on his knees, just stayed on his tummy and held on.

Then Sareny wanted to try water skiing.

She made a few good attempts, but she didn't get up either.

 Then she tried the knee board.

 She did great, and moved to her knees.

She held on and looked like she was having lots of fun.

 They both loved the knee board thing!

 The spectators again.

 Finley didn't want to try the knee board.

 But Sareny got another turn and loved it.

She made this face when she was concentrating.

 A happy girl!

 Then Isaac got another turn too.

Days like this made me kind of want a boat. But that would make me the only adult in our family that thinks it would be fun. Although, 5 against 1, right? Still, isn't going to happen. Maybe we'll get invited to the lake again sometime. And a final picture of Keeley waving goodbye.

Spending Time with the Keel's

After spending a couple of fun days with the Fallstroms, we drove five miles to visit Jake and Liz, who also live in Lehi.

I love their backyard--so green and pretty! Plus it has a green park right behind their house as well. The kids had fun playing around in the sandbox.

 The kids had a great time and they all got good and wet.

 It was fun to see cousins we don't get to see very often.

As soon as Jake got home from work, we loaded up and drove up American Fork Canyon. It was pretty and relaxing.

The kids loved playing around in the stream. Except for Finley, who fell in and got all wet. It was pretty cold, at least for us Phoenicians, and it was a good thing I had some clothes in the van for her to change in to.

 KeeKee and her daddy.

 Cute Finley girl.

 Me and baby William.

 More fun in the water.

Then it was time for dinner. Before leaving their house, we had made up some tinfoil dinners, and Liz had the makings for s'mores. Yum!

 I couldn't believe that William would just hang out in his playpen. Seriously--that has never been any of my children.

 They're more into things like this:

 Isaac loves talking to babies and making them laugh.

 And Sareny loves posing.

 So does this girl.

That night, Keith and I slept in Josh and Charlie's twin captain beds, and the kids had a campout in the backyard. What a fun idea!

 Here they are in the tent, ready to settle down and go to sleep. Yeah right! They were pretty good and let the adults play a game inside before Liz came out and slept in the tent with them. What a good sport she is! Anyway, it was a really fun day.

A Campout

The kids decided to have a sleepover out in the clubhouse. Actually, although he is pictured here, Sareny and Finley decided to have a campout, and Isaac opted to sleep inside in his nice warm bed. Isaac and I went outside to check on the kids, and as soon as I opened the back door, I could hear the lovely sounds of a child screaming their head off. The above picture is blurry, and the only reason I included it here is because you can see that Finley holds nothing back when she is upset. And upset she was!

Still angry...Despite the bloody murder types of screams that would have led you to believe something major and shocking was occuring, I believe it was something along the lines of, "Sareny is crowding me."

She finally settled down and promised to be quiet...I'm surprised we didn't have the cops over here for a noise violation! After these pictures, the girls snuggled down and went to sleep, and Isaac went back in the house. Fun times!

Camping at Knoll Lake

Based on a friend's reccomendation, we went camping at Knoll Lake just before school started back up. It was a pretty far drive, but really beautiful. I think we got the best campsite at the whole place--it felt really isolated but in a good way.

We spent two nights there and had a great time hanging out as a family. We played some Go Fish, read books out loud, and the kids just got good and dirty exploring. The first night we were there, Sareny had a bit of a fever, and I was super worried since I had forgotten to pack any medicine, and the nearest store would be a four hour round trip drive. Fortunately, she felt much better the next morning when she woke up, so all was well.

I of course took some pics of the kids.

They just all looked so cute!

Then I took some individual pictures of each kid. I was kind of annoyed that Isaac jumped into the background on this one, but Finley looks so cute I am posting it anyway.

My handsome buki.

I'm thinking Isaac looks kind of like my brother in these pictures. Strange, since I always thought he looked exactly like Keith.

Sareny Agnes

When I was taking Sareny's picture, Finley ran up to hug her and be in the picture too. So I took a couple sissy pictures.

Then we hiked down to the lake.

It wasn't long before they discovered the joy of throwing rocks into the water. Fortunately there weren't any nearby fishermen. (fisherpeople?)

Then Isaac found the letter "T." He asked me what was a name that started with T, but had an I in it. I came up with Tim, and he insisted that we call him that for the rest of the day. He still occassionally wants to be called Tim.

Then we walked back to our camp.

Along the way we saw a lot of butterflies.

And Sareny picked some wildflowers.

Later that day the kids got to cook their own hotdog for dinner. They seriously thought that was the best thing ever and talked about it for days afterwards. I would love to put a firepit in the backyard so we could do this at home.

They took the task very seriously, and as you can see from the above picture, kept their hotdogs pretty far from the coals, thereby extending the experience.

Finley had fallen asleep earlier, and we woke her up to eat a hotdog. Waking a kid up is always a risky venture, and she was super grouchy. But she eventually came around and enjoyed her hotdog as well.

We had a fun trip and can't wait to go back.