Camping 2014-Part I

I had to document our first annual camping trip.  We never made it happen when we were managing.  Our vacation days were very coveted so we could never justify taking days to do that.  Last summer, I had a 2 month old and a 19 month old...I just couldn't make that happen.  So, we finally got to it.  I LOVE camping and I have been craving the energy it gives my soul.  Thankfully, Nate is willing to put in the work to make it happen for me.

The kids were much better than I expected and it all went quite smoothly.  They loved rolling in the mud and catching the chipmunks and groundhog type things that ran around our campground.  Eden did her first hike and loved it...mostly.  I may or may not have carried her up every hill:)

I have a lot of pictures that I want to remember so I'm going to have to break up the trip into a few posts, but here are the first few photos.

Have I mentioned that Nate and Brigham are best friends.  Seriously.  They were not posing for these pictures.  I simply pulled out the camera when they were being their hilarious selves.  This was on our hike-beautiful by the way.  It was Cascade Springs up Little Deer Creek Canyon in Midway.   Please note that all of the pictures are completely out of order.  I just had to get something up or I will never get to this.

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 We also drove down into cilivilization one day to get a milk shake and go swimming.   The kids LOVE to swim and we hadn't gone yet this week, so it was a must!  This is Little Deer Creek Resevoir.  It was beautiful.  We ate our dinner there and after we swam we made sand castles.

Brigham thought it was the neatest thing in the world that he had a little chair just his size.  Don't mind that he dove out of that thing a couple of time.  Things like that do not deter this kid.  Persistence is his middle name!

 My brother, Blake, is on a mission.  He loves anything flannel, so I had to snap this shot to send to our "Bubba".

Each night after the kids were asleep in the tent, Nate and I would sit around the campfire playing games or reading or talking and I just kept saying over and over again..."this is so good for my soul".  I just needed to be away from everything for a time.  We've had the blessing of going on lots of family trips, but we're always trying to cram naps to fit around everyone else's time frame, or the kids are super ornery because we're rushing them from thing to thing because it's what the group wants.  Don't get me wrong, those are so fun.  But this felt like a vacation to me.  We hiked as far as Eden was happy and then we left.  Because we could.  Because we didn't have to push her to do more because everyone else was.  We drove around the city for an hour so the kids could nap in the car because we didn't have to be anywhere.  And at night, I didn't have to think about all the things I SHOULD be doing.  I could just be still.  I could just enjoy this beautiful world and being with the love of my life.  It truly was so needed.