Camping Craze

Two camping trips, two weeks apart!  We wanted to camp with Kurtis and Lauren, and that worked out to do on my birthday weekend (apparently this is becoming a tradition, I love it!).  Then we wanted to camp on the way to St. George for Lydia's baptism.  

We were able to make both happen!

The first trip was to the Uintas, and it was cold!  With the cold wet June, the snow had barely melted and it felt like early spring, which it was up there!  The wildflower meadow next to our campsite was beautiful.

Unfortunately, it started raining right as we finished cooking our dinner, and continued for hours!

We made the best of it though, and had a great time making smores and playing games with our super fun uncle and new aunt that we love!

Our tent sprung a leak and soaked half our stuff, so Kurtis and Lauren let Owen and Maris sleep in their tent and we survived the night!  If it had been just us we probably would have packed up and gone home, but I'm glad their enthusiasm kept us there.
The next morning was clearer.

We went on a short hike,

And then had a great time at Provo River Falls again.

After a couple-week break we were ready to head out again!  This time we went South, to the Cedar Breaks area in the mountains above Cedar City.

We went on a cool hike to see the views at Cedar Breaks, with more wildflowers:

Eric had fun taking pictures in portrait mode :)

This classic view was awe-inspiring!

Our campsite was just a mile or so from Navajo Lake, and we brought the paddleboard to enjoy:

The campsite was great except for the 1 million flies and ants!  Once again we made the best of it.

Eric reading Harry Potter to the kids around the campfire :)

I made them all stop to see the lava flows:

We were happy to get to our hotel and swim and shower!  maris and owen were cute sharing a bed

Eric and Emma loved Katrina's baby Travis!

And we enjoyed playing in the Virgin River after Lydia's baptism with the Cravens and Grammy and Grandpa Jamie!

cute Emma and Justin!  And Maris and Lydia doing a spin jump.

It was a fun trip and the kids were all inspired in their own ways by Lydia's Baptism and Confirmation: worth it!

Camping really is getting easier as the kids get older, but also they are not as thrilled to sleep on the ground in a tent!  Lesson learned: taking kids camping when they are little is worth it.

The Glorious Fourth

We are pretty lucky that the 4th of July is Grandma (Mary)'s favorite holiday!  We always get to do fun things with her that day!  This year we went up to Heber to the celebration at Red Ledges, where Brad and Mary have their building lot.  It was way fun, even better than Oakridge's! 
This was so cute, Emma held SO still to have her face painted!

Cute butterfly girl.

maris was a butterfly too.

Owen got a tiger,

Whitney was pretty happy with her Spiderman arm!

And Katelyn was a butterfly!

They had a ton of other fun crafts, delicious food, and bounce houses too.  It was great.  I tried to take a few pictures of fireworks:

And of Owen and Maris' faces.

Then we went up to Fruit Heights so we could enjoy the Oakridge swim party for the last time, sad!  It was a blast, except a storm rolled in and we had to leave before the last couple of games.  We had a pretty lame, rainy June and July!!
Owen and Cleo are cute together, same age cousins are fun!

Emma LOVED this little pool, she jumped in a million times!

Then we went home for a few fireworks that night. 

My cuties!