This last weekend we had a long overdue family campout! My Aunt Elaine has been reserving a private campground by Bryce Canyon every summer for two weeks for the last FIFTY years! They only do their family reunion every other year and she's been offering to let us use it every off year for a while now. She finally contacted me to see if I wanted to plan something, so this has been in the works since last November! I'm so glad we did this and it ended up being bigger than I initially thought. My brother Todd and his family were able to come from Australia and my brother Jon and his two kids were able to come from Texas. (Poor Laura had to work and we really missed her!) Even Melissa and Levi were able to come. The campsite was AWESOME! It was private, so we had our own gate and no one but us was allowed in. There was a huge table and fire pit area for our group gatherings. We were right by a beautiful lake that we took several four wheeler and motorcycle trips around. My cousin Kristin and her family were also up there, so some of us went fishing with them. My brother Jon brought some crafty stuff to do. He had PVC pipe that the kids made into bows and then they made arrows to go with them complete with feathers on the ends! He definitely won Uncle of the Week for most of the kids with his cool crafts. On Thursday afternoon most of us went horseback riding down into Bryce Canyon. (Thanks so much Todd for watching my kids so I could go!) We had several campfires and even had a movie night with the projector on the side of our camper. Lots of games, junk food, and catching up with my family. It was such a great week I think I'll definitely plan something again for next year!
Here's Lila in the Pack n Play, poor girl kept eating rocks if I let her on the ground.
Levi and Beth making their bows and arrows
Melissa doing her boondogle (I'm so glad they were able to come, too! They only found out a few days before that they'd be able to make it!)
Makayla doing her boondogle
Grace and Beth
Isaak on my dirt bike. This is ALL that he wanted to do everyday, ALL day! So many rides down the road!
Jon making fun of Rusty, on their way down to the lake
Beth (Thanks Dad for planning the horseback riding!)
Grace
It was so beautiful down in the canyon, and we only got rained on for a few minutes!
I was impressed with how well the little ones did
This is the last day of our trip. We hiked a tiny bit in the canyon.
Alisa, Jessie, and Ryan. She left right from this trip to Disneyland, lucky stinkers. So nice that she was able to leave the two little ones home and have some time with these two cuties.
I definitely embarassed myself a little by getting after all the kids for standing too close to the edge. I couldn't stop myself! I'm way too nervous!
Jon, Christian, and Grace
Me and my boy!
I just LOVE this gorgeous girl!
AND..... it wouldn't be a Patrea blog if I didn't throw in some pictures of the kids from the last month, so here you go!
We got to babysit Lincoln a couple days at the beginning of this month. It was so fun to have him around! Here are the two boys eating their lunch outside. ( Moments after them getting into the kiddie pool when I ran inside for a sec, clothes, shoes, and all!)
I wish that I'd gotten pictures of the Fourth of July! We went with our friends, Darin and Rachelle to a lake by our home. Then we did a GARGANTUAN pack of fireworks in the circle. My brother, Chris, and his family came with their fireworks and we put on a show! Lots of neighbors showed up to watch, good times!
This last weekend we went camping with our friends Darin and Rachelle. We left Friday afternoon and camped at Cherry Hill. On Saturday morning we went to the dinosaur park in Ogden and then in the afternoon we played at Cherry Hill. We came home Sunday morning. Except for a few mishaps, (like our AC going out in our trailer so we were all COOKING!) we had a really nice time! I forgot to charge to charge the camera battery before I left home, so I was only able to get pictures of the dinosaur park. It was super cool! I'd never been there so I didn't know what to expect, but I think the Dinosaur Park and Cherry Hill were great choices for our family.
Darin, Rachelle, and Lauren
Ashby and Andrew
my awsome honey and Isaak
Lauren and Isaak
here, rexy, rexy
me and Isaak
Here we are digging for gems, we found a bunch, too!
They had beautiful trails to walk along and see all the dinosaurs, seriously, this place to so cool. They have places where you can dig for fossils, playgrounds made out of dinosaurs, panning for gold, and the traditional museum with bones. 
And this is the last picture of us alive....... he he
Darin , Ashby and Andrew
Here's the only pictures I was able to get of our campsite. We had a great spot right by the back entrance to Cherry Hill
I'm so sad that summer is coming to a close, hopefully we'll be able to squeeze a couple more trips in!
