Camping Trip: Flaming Gorge!! (Day one!)

It's crazy the summer was almost over yet we hadn't been camping as a family once....but Nate had been camping 2/3 of the summer due to fire fighting and scout camp! Now it was our turn!! So we headed a few hours away to the beautiful Ashley National Forest: Flaming Gorge! What an awesome place to visit!

The kids were super excited to go camping! They just love it!

And what a beautiful place with ponds, lakes, and rivers!

We went on an awesome hike right along the river. We sat on this rock and watched all the rafts float by! 

We couldn't quite take a picture looking into the sun!! But we tried!

Some of the cool things about this hike was seeing fish swim in the river, and also watching the fisherman in their boats, and all the rafts float by! We wish we were on one of the river rafts! It looked like fun! Next time for sure!

We even saw two deer swimming across the river! I didn't know deer could swim!

 The hike went along the board walk.

The kids were so excited to wade their feet in the water! Boy was it cold!

Ty was super sweet helping Mara through the water!

Ty was so cute helping Caleb in the water...that is until he accidentally gave him a little push and he fell in!

Carder loved putting his feet in the cold water! He thought this was great fun!

Caluba with his shirt off!! He was trying to dry out after falling in the river!

Here is Flaming Gorge!! We went on a tour of the dam!

Speaking of dams here is the whole fam-dam!! Yay! The tour of the dam was actually really awesome! We rode an elevator all the way down to the bottom of the the dam and fed fish in the river.

We saw lots of great wildlife: big horn sheep, deer, antelope, marmots, moose...we saw lots of animals!

If you ask the kids what their favorite part of the trip was they will probably say: the paddle boats!! (*Except Carder! He hated it! He liked the boat but hated his life jacket so he cried most of the time and wanted to jump out!) 

We each had a bag of food to feed the fish and ducks! As soon as we threw the food in the water the ducks came a swimmin'!!

We went at sunset and the clouds were magnificent! What a beautiful night!

Da boyz!! They loved paddling their boats around!

So pretty! We went fishing off the boat dock at sunset and watched the sun go down!

Deer eating bird food?! Ya, that was kind of crazy!

Birthday Boy! 1 YEAR old!!

My BABY is ONE! Holy moly how did that happen?! I can't believe it! Oh how we love this little munchin Carder! He has brought so much JOY to our family! Our little blond haired buddy is so fun and adorable!!

Carder was so not impressed with his cupcakes! Maybe because I cheated and bought them from the store and didn't make them! He just looked at his cupcake and wondered what we were doing singing and cheering!

We totally jipped Carder out of his first birthday! We celebrated by going camping! As soon as we ate cupcakes and opened presents we literally jumped in the car and left for Flaming Gorge!

We totally wanted to give Carder his own cupcake and let him go to town and make a huge mess but our car was loaded and we were ready to leave so we decided to keep his mess contained!!

The kids were pretty excited to help Carder open his presents! They were more excited about his gifts than he was!

Carder's new ball! He is obsessed with balls! He can even say 'ball' it is so cute!

 Look at that smile and he is in his carseat!! After a year he has finally learned that driving in the car isn't so bad! As Caleb said "Look mom! Carder learned to be quiet in the car!" It's true! He will even take a nap if it is close to nap time!

Howdy partner! Love this little cowboy!

Besides playing with balls Carder's other favorite thing is playing in my cupboards! He has the best time emptying each shelf! He usually does this while I am making dinner! I don't really mind. he's happy and content to play and make a mess!

Love. Love. Love this sweet baby boy who is growing up so fast!

The County Fair!

When I think of the County Fair I think of lots of animals, 4H projects, and rides...not the Carbon County fair! We went on the free kid's day and played on all the bouncy toys! We did see a few 4H items, but we didn't see any animals!

The kids had a blast in this bouncy rink trying to knock each other down with their padded stick and it was pretty entertaining to watch!

My favorite thing was watching Caleb try to pick his up! 

Carder was pretty entertained watching all that was going on!  

This bouncy place was nice and cool and refreshing! It sprayed the kids with water.

There was a drawing for the kids with prizes. We hurry and put our names in at the last minute and well...they must not have shaken the container or mixed it up very well because all THREE kids won a prize! They were all pretty excited with their winnings! Ty won a kite, Caleb won a super soaker, and Mara won a surf board! It might not have been the best fair in the world, but it was a fun day for the kids!

Activity #76: Pudding Paint!

We had a very messy but fun activity one day this summer...pudding paint!! It was nice and cool and yummy! The kids really got into it and loved it...especially Carder!

He didn't know what to think of it at first!

But it didn't take Carder long to realize how delicious and tasty this chocolate goodness was!

Mr. Ty was creative and actually drew a picture in his! I think he made a person!

And he even painted his face! Nice look Ty!

This little cute boy sure had fun with this activity...I can tell with the pudding on the cheeks!

Fishing with Daddy!

Boy were we happy when daddy came home from fighting his forest fire! We hardly recognized him with a full bushy beard!! (Wish we would have gotten pictures! He didn't look like Nate!) The day after he got home he had off so we decided to go fishing! We didn't have much luck with the fish, only caught two, but we didn't care! We were just glad to  be with our dad!

Ty wearing his papa's old fishing hat! He was hoping it would bring him luck and catch a fish but no such luck!

Caleb caught a fish though and here daddy is trying to take it off the line!

Sweet little Mara sure missed her daddy! She was so glad to have him home! 

It was a fun day fishing, even if it was a little hot! 

Ty is sure getting good at fishing! He looks like a pro! 

Funny story about the shorts Caleb is wearing: I saw him with these on and wondered why they looked so short. I didn't think he had a pair like this but they did look familiar! It wasn't until we got home and saw the top button wasn't buttoned that I realized those were Carder's shorts!! No wonder they were too small for Caleb! He found them in his drawer and thought they were his! Funny kid! 

Carder enjoyed watching the fishing action from his stroller! Soon he will be holding a pole and trying to catch a fish!

2 weeks + 2 days = a LONG time!!

It was just three weeks ago, but felt like three months ago, that Nate was sent to Idaho to fight a forest fire. It was a long two weeks without him, we missed him like crazy and hated him being gone! But while he was away we stayed very (very) busy! We headed to Tooele to hang out with Mimi and Papa which turned out to be a great adventure! We went to museums, the library, parks, water slides, and much more! It wasn't all playtime and fun however...the kids really worked hard on school work, practicing the piano, and projects! During these two weeks without Nate the kids and I took video clips of the fun things we did. Then we made them into a movie (click the link at the bottom of the screen to watch the movie on youtube!)  Here are just a few pictures I took but the movie captures most of the adventure!

 

On pioneer day we walked across the street and went to the Pioneer museum.

 

My kids got a kick out of the outhouse...

...especially when they opened the door to find someone sitting on the pot!

The boys checking out the gigantic 'Mormon Crkckets'! Nasty!

 We took a tour of some pioneer houses.

 One day we went to the Children's Museum at the Gateway.

 The kids loved putting on dress up clothes and performing on stage!

We went to Liberty Park one day and fed the ducks, went to Tracy Aviary, had a picnic and played with our cousins! 

I must say we survived our time away from Nate and grateful he would work so hard for his family! We are thankful for Mimi and Papa for taking such good care of us while he was away!!

Click here to watch the movie we made for our daddy!