Camping - same place, different company

A few weeks ago we got together with a bunch of my family for a fun weekend in Cache Valley. Hannah, Karl and their four kids came up from Lehi as part of their vacation to join the rest of us (my sister Karinne, my sister Meghan- her hub Carson and dog Nani, and me and Keegan) for a little camping. After searching around for available campsites Meghan found one up at Porcupine Dam in the Cinnamon Creek campgrounds. Keegan and I were pretty familiar with our campsite as we had just been their two weeks previous for our ward campout. :-) It was the EXACT site as we stayed before- but it was a nice one so no complaints!

Meghan was pretty on top of it and had spent a lot of her week getting ready for this event- which meant that we ate very well while we were there. Tin foil dinners, s'mores, banana boats, and blueberry pancakes all turned out great! Jacen, who is eight and the oldest of the Pyne kiddies was the only one who had ever gone camping (officially) and it was so much fun to witness the first ever roasting of a marshmallow and tasting of a s'more or campfire grilled meal :-) And yes, we all quoted 'The Sand Lot' as we made our s'mores.

The 12 of us fit into two different tents. The Pynes brought up a HUGE tent that eight of us fit in while Megs, Cars, K-Poo and Nani fit into the other. With all the body heat in the big tent it wasn't as cold of a night as I had the first time up there, but there were still reasons to not sleep soundly. I'm not sure what time it was, but I awoke in the pitch black tent to what really felt like a scurrying little critter at my feet. I have to admit I was a little nervous! I know raccoons can be pretty vicious and it felt about that size and my feet were right by the door. I wanted to reach for my flashlight to see what it was but at the same time didn't want to startle whatever it was- especially after reading a bunch of notices posted all over the campground about how to deal with animal encounters! But... as it turned out it was my nephew who was so cold that he had curled up at the bottom of his sleeping bag into a little ball and shivering! In my defense- he's a pretty skinny kid and I did not think if he was cold he would squirm all the way to the other end of his bag to get warm. It was pretty funny though. For the most part the kids did a great job during the night- especially for being as young as they are- and only woke us a few times.

The next morning we made breakfast, cleaned up, played 500 with nothing other than a Nerf football, and then went on a little hike following the creek. We had little contests of who could hit certain protruding rocks, and really just enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Jacen got pretty good at skipping rocks in the creek, while Nani was getting annoyed because she tried unsuccessfully to retrieve every rock that was thrown in the water. Little Kirsty, after being told not to throw rocks while she was behind people, picked up a particularly large one that ended up in Jacen's back instead of the creek. Kirsty ended up doing the crying instead of Jacen but Hannah was able to console her and she was able to muster up an apology which also helped her to calm down. Hannah lifted up Jacen's shirt to see the damage and put a hand over her mouth before he could see her reaction. There was definitely an imprint!!

After a little more playing we finished packing up and headed back to Meg's and Carson's place for lunch. And a nap. We were all pretty tired but took naps in rounds so the kids could have a playmate. Keegan, Karinne and I took the first round. Luckily Megs had her camera handy to catch the after camp-nap pose :-)


We all spent the night at Meghan's and went to the Logan Aquatic Center the next day. Karinne's roommate Whitney went with us and it was a lot of fun! Alyssa who is five and normally the most timid, turned out to be the most adventurous swimmer and even went down the big water slide twice.

The rest of Saturday was spent playing games like Balderdash (or Bladderdash as the Monsons call it), Scattergories, and games on the Wii or PS2. Of course we had to take advantage of 7-Eleven's FREE slurpy offer, in honor of the date: 7/11.

Sunday was nice and relaxing as well. It was a good day to recover from our sunburns by staying indoors. We were sad to have the Pynes leave. I'm glad we have such a good family that we look for reasons to try and extend our time together rather than shorten it.