1st Camping of the Summer...Whew!

We went camping this last weekend up Big Cottonwood Canyon, and it was beautiful!

It was the all day ward picnic, of which I am in charge, on Saturday.

So, we decided it would make it easier to camp out the night before too. I love camping...well, except for the work getting there, and the cleanup.

But, while we are there, it is great!

I posted a lot of pictures in this one so you could see all the stuff we did. It was a lot of fun! Ward activities exhaust me anyway, but combine it with family camping and I am just about done in. We had to pay for 2 nights in the campsite because it was a weekend, so we decided to stay until Sunday, and enjoy that day in the mountains too. Yes, we skipped church, but, I felt very close to God in the mountains...and we had some really great family time together. It was great! If you look behind Hailey in this picture...that is our Bishop(the red shirt and hat guy), I am sure he understood my wanting to stay in the mountains...they camp in this campground every year because they love it so much.

We went on a hike to Donut Falls, not too strenuous, Kim, Vicki, Becki and I should have tried this one when we were looking for a place to hike. It was probably more of what Kim was wanting. But I bet there was a lot of snow when they were out here.

That river comes down the mountains from all the melting snow, and it was so high. I guess we had a lot of snow this year, maybe that means no more drought. The water was ice cold too...there was a couple of spots where I walked in the water on the trail. Brrrrr!!

It was a beautiful day for a hike though.

Jerry and Gabe walked to the bathroom the first night,

and found this beautiful moth, check out those wings.

Hailey, and some friends, Anika and Ellie, went exploring and found "Moss Island". They decided it is where the fairies live. It was a very magical place,

Hailey said, "It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen"

Sorry about the blurry pictures, our camera is having issues right now.

After the ward picnic was done, everyone else went home and we made a campfire in our own site, they kids were exhausted, and Jerry and I had fun talking by the campfire.

I think I fell asleep 4-5 times while he was talking though, shhhh don't tell him. It was a good conversation, well, what I heard of it anyway. Ha ha. It was so warm by the fire, I couldn't help it.

The next morning we slept in, and woke up to the birds and sunshine. We made breakfast...eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns over the fire....mmmmmm.

I know this one is blurry, but I had to show it, Gabe was getting really good with the hatchet. Dad, maybe he could help you split wood sometime.

Then we packed up and headed down the canyon, we stopped off and found a pretty little spot for the kids to try out Jerry's slingshot, and Hailey traced leaves in her notebook.

Gabe, of course, couldn't resist seeing how big of a splash the rocks would make too! He is silly!

It was a great weekend, and we had a lot of fun together,

and enjoyed the amazing things on this small part of our planet.