Annual Neighborhood Camping Trip

We had an amazing time at our annual camping trip with a few friends from our neighborhood. We try to choose a different place every year. There are a few stipulations in the process. It has to be fairly close and has to have water. In years previous we've had a lot of fun at various places. We went to Trial Lake, but it got down to freezing at night, and we've been to Bear Lake, but the mosquitoes were out of control. This year we went to Hyrum Reservoir and had a blast. There was a beach not to far from the camp grounds. The only thing missing, we all decided, was a boat! Here are Grace and Miles on the beach. I'm so proud of my kids this year because they're actually enjoying the water more. It has taken many years and many water trips for them to become comfortable. I have had a hard time with this because I'm such a fish!

Nate packed Moses up pretty well. At least he had a pillow!

The kids had fun with this tube for hours. Ella especially liked it. She loved to push people around in it.

Here is Ella wanting to get in the tent. She had to come a get a closer look to see who was inside.

This tent story is pretty funny. I asked Nate to go through all of our tent stuff on our garage shelf. For a family who hardly goes camping, we have inherited a lot. Nate thought that he grabbed our two man tent for the boys, and our mid-size tent for the rest of us, along with a tarp. When we started unpacking the tarp we found this amazing huge tent (shown above). We were thrilled that we had such a big tent, but have no idea where it came from. So, we showed up to the camp ground with 3 tents! We set up this big one for all of the big kids, and then Nate and I slept in the mid-sizer with Ella.

Whoops! It got pretty windy up at the lake. That would be my only complaint about the place. The first night I couldn't sleep because I was afraid our tent would collapse. Well the big huge tent made it through the first night, but during the next day while we were at the beach the wind finally toppled the tent. Shown here is the broken rod. So, the second and third nights Isaiah and Miles slept in the two-man tent and the rest of us were in the mid-size tent. We'll have to get the rod replaced for next year because we LOVE this big tent!

Let's just say that this didn't end well.

Here are the men being ultra-competitive, as usual. Here they were playing a "friendly" game of 500 with a football.

YUMMO (as Rachel Ray would say)! We love our s'mores. One bummer was the individual campsites didn't have camp fire pits. The campground had 2 community ones and we snagged one up on our last night for some marshmallow roasting.Every year we get a photo of all of the kids and one of all of the adults. It is kind of fun to see how they have grown up year after year. I think this was the fourth year in a row that we all went. Well, we actually missed last year because Nate's brother decided to get married on the same weekend. But here is the kids with their strong pose. I love Ella's the best! Grace's is pretty sassy too!

This was my favorite of the adults! It was our funny faces. There are some pretty good ones here! Thanks to the Baileys, the Phillips, the Steadmans, and the Trommlitzs for a great time. Thanks to the Phillips for being our professional photographers too!