Camping!

 Mom talked me into going camping over Labor Day weekend.  We tried it once 2 years ago & didn't have fun with a 1 & 2 year old, but Mom was pretty persistent so we packed the car to the lid & away we went to Tony's Grove in Logan Canyon! 

Tucker was very independent on this trip.  He thinks he is big stuff like his brother & sister.  He was quite slow, but he did good walking :) 

 My Aunt Pam's family came too.  Here is Abby, Chloe & our gang playing by the lake.

 Whitney adores Chloe & doesn't seem to notice their age difference at all.  Chloe is a good sport about playing with her lots.

It rained and stormed all night.  It was really cold & loud so in the middle of the night we all crawled into the trailer to sleep! The next morning it was still too cold so we did crafts inside too.

 Once it warmed up we played some games.

 We also went for a hike around the lake.

 Mom & her favorite color... this is the last we saw of her as she sped off with Chloe & Tommy.

I forgot how much I love to hike!  There is nothing like it.

We decided to take the stroller on this hike & it got quite hairy.  We had to carry it a lot!

 Whitney wanted a picture next to this tiny "waterfall"... so tiny that you can't see it in the picture!

 We came upon this really cool rock wall & decided to climb it.

 Here we are at the top.  I thought this picture would be really cool, but Vic zoomed in on it!

 So just as we are feeling cool for climbing our "cliff", my teenage cousin Colter decided to show us how much cooler he was by climbing higher.... 

...and Trevor the coolest for climbing the highest!!

 There was a lot of mushrooms because of the wet August.  I made Tommy squeeze back behind it so you could see just how HUGE this thing was!

 In the afternoon I had the kids do more crafts & painting. 

Trevor, Chloe & Vic went for a hike. Vic was impressed with how well Chloe kept up.

I told him he better take pictures if he was going to be gone 6 hours & these two are the only 2 he took.  Ha, such a man!

 The kids did really well at entertaining themselves around the campsite.  Tucker was a bit crazy, but overall they did pretty good.

Hiking with kids

We did well enough on our little hike that we decided to brave a big one!

 The way up was really fun.  We stopped & took lots of pictures along the way.

 Tommy wanted to pose on every big rock.

 Little Mermaid pose on Pride Rock!

 The gang:  Me, Tommy, Mom, Whitney, Chloe, Victor, & Tucker

 Cool log.

The way back down was not so fun.  

The kids did really good the whole way up, but then they were exhausted & refused to walk back!

Vic used the backpack for the bigger 2 & I carried Tucker in my arms, which I thought were going to fall off. 

I jogged ahead of Vic so I could let my arms take a break & make Tucker walk.  

Tucker didn't mind, but he was very slow!

 I was so glad when we got 1/2 way back to where we had ditched the stroller! 

 ... that is until Vic caught up & I carried Whitney in my arms.  As much as we liked the hike up... we'll be waiting another 3 years before we attempt another hike like that with the kids!!! 

The sight of the lake by our campsite was such a relief!!

August Rain

It rained the whole month of August!  

...so we tried to make the best of it!  Here is the kids ready to play in the puddles.

 We have a city drain at the back of our neighborhood so we headed there & found a nice giant puddle.  It was too deep to splash in though so it wasn't the kids' favorite one as I thought it might have been.

 We went to a baseball game & had fun until we got rained out in the 7th inning.  We tried to go two other nights, but both times the game got canceled due to rain.

 One good thing about rain, is that it makes for cool morning & active animals at the zoo!  My cousin Chloe came to visit my mom & so we took her around town.  Whitney adored her.

 Tommy got a new Jake pirate shirt & decided to be a pirate this day.

 Tucker has MASTERED this super CHEESY smile!!!

 You see those crazy excited wild kids at the zoo... yup, they're mine :)

 Whitney got the merry-go-round all to herself!

 Tommy was sure he wanted to go on the "octopus" & I told him it was too scary, but he still wanted to do it.  Here he is smiling at first, Two seconds later when he went up, it terrified him & screamed to get off!

 This tiny little train was just right for him. He loved it.

 In the afternoon we went to the "Legend of Oz" movie.  The kids did surprisingly really good. (except Tucker of course... we needed non-stop snacks to keep him settled.)