girls camp

I remember girls camp being the biggest thing I would look forward to in the year while I was growing up.  I would pack weeks before and look forward to getting to spend time with my best friends while we sat around and talked in our tents.

I loved the leaders. They were great. I didn't realize as a Young Woman the sacrifice it took for them to be up there at girls camp. They had families they had to leave, babysitting that they needed to arrange, oddly enough their lives didn't totally revolve around us...what! It sure felt like it did.

In our church, I get the privilege of serving with the young women, specifically the 16-17 year old women. I love those girls to pieces. I would love to be half as good of a leader to them as mine were to me, but really they are the example to me. I was excited and nervous to go to camp this year.

I never leave my boys for getaways, not even with my own husband. Someday we hope to, but for now, we are perfectly happy spending our vacations together as a family. So for me to up and leave all four of my boys for three days was a hard thing. Justin is amazing, he used his vacation days from work so that he could stay home with the boys and we wouldn't have to arrange getting a babysitter while I was gone. Knowing that they were in great hands helped me to feel more at ease.    

I had a great time with the girls. 

On our way to the campsite the girls went tubing down a river. I wasn't planning on going, but it looked way too fun. 

 Notice how white my chicken legs are in the tube...then how red they are below. After one week mine is starting to not hurt so much. I never realize how much the boys touch me on my legs...ouch. 

This camp was so relaxing and a great time to bond with the girls. I even stayed up until after midnight playing card games with the girls in their tents. I don't even remember the last time I stayed up until after midnight...probably when I was nursing Levi almost four years ago...   

These girls are full of so much goodness and light. There was no drama, no complaining, lots of kindness and good attitude. I wish the world was full of more women like these one.  And even more importantly, I hope there are women like these when our boys are old enough to find their eternal mate. 

I loved this time with these girls!!

I ended up coming home a day early. I sure missed my boys like crazy and what do you know, they didn't miss me one bit. They were having way too much fun with daddy. (however, I did get extra big hugs)

our nice long independence weekend

I LOVE this country. I LOVE this time to reflect on and celebrate our freedom. I LOVE the time that we took to teach our kids about our founding fathers this week and how our country came to have these liberties. I LOVE that I get to live here with MY family!

We started our long all-american weekend off just right by picking up a redneck canoe from an awesome guy living at a trailer park. We strapped it to our minivan and headed for home. Can't get more American than that. As we were pulling up to our home the neighborhood fireworks were just starting.  The boys were ecstatic to be up way, way past their bedtimes. Not only that, but they got to run around outside with all the neighbor kids. Being in heaven is an understatement. Oh, and there were tons of treats. And fireworks.

The morning of the 4th we headed to our small town parade. 

*side note*  

People are kind of crazy and will have their spots reserved at midnight the night before. Most spots are taken 24 hours before the parade even starts...crazy.

Lucky for us we have some awesome crazy friends who let us come sit with them.  

I admire that family so much. 

There was so much candy being thrown out. Corbin even hooked me up with a wrapped cinnamon bear. We also got lots of bead necklaces, a frisbee, and two coupons for free ties...score!

This was one of Taylor's favorite floats. He loved all those flags. (not so much the concrete truck)

Afterwards we headed up to Logan Canyon for an escape up to the mountains. It was so pleasant up there and our boys had their own nature playground.  This log was in our campsite, they used it as a horse.

Our little scout Corbin got our campfire ready by building a teepee in the fire pit. 

That boy is growing up fast right before my eyes. He has been attached to his dad lately. Whatever Justin does, Corbin does. I hope he continues down that path because he couldn't pick a better man to follow.

As usual I wish I would've taken way more pictures. Justin has a habit of never taking pictures because he loves to live in the moment and not have to stop and take a picture. I sometimes get that way, which is great, I want to enjoy the moment and just live it up and saver it. But there is nothing like sitting back and looking at years and years of memories that we took the time to take pictures of.  I have a new excitement for taking more pictures again...

We also headed up to Bear Lake, which unfortunately didn't last long. It was raining as we were driving up, but as we pulled up the rain stopped and there was a break in the dark clouds. The sun came out and we were able to enjoy playing on the lake for those 30 beautiful minutes. We call it our Bear Lake Miracle. We soaked it up and then packed up and left just as the rain starting coming again.  It was kind of disappointing, but we still loved being there.

The next day we headed to a lake close to home and enjoyed taking the canoe out there.  All five of us climbed in and Justin and I rowed us around to look at the beautiful scenery. Corbin was standing and looking down at the water, Justin saw his opportunity. He thought he would tilt the canoe really quickly so that Corbin would fall in (Corbin does like to get in, just so you know). I felt the movement and kind of panicked and I leaned the exact same way. Yep, the boat capsized. After the initial shock we were all laughing hysterically. (yes, we always wear life jackets). We swam to shore with our canoe dumped the water out and got back in. 

A great memory was made.

Man, I wish I had a picture...luckily I did not have the camera with me.