Vacation Chronicles III

Have you ever been to Fish Lake, Utah? It's pretty amazing. Our good friends, Derek and Sherry Stewart, invited us on their family trip this year and we had a blast. I am sure escaping the really hot Vegas temps helped with my excitement. I really do like camping, even though camping with my kids is a lot of work. I told Tyler that's probably why I like girls' camp so much (camping sans little kids.) We left Wednesday afternoon and the kids did pretty well on the drive MINUS the "I have to go potty" meltdown that Caylee had shortly after leaving Cedar City (where she went potty. Why do kids do that?) Anyhow, here we are filling up our water when we got to Fish Lake before going to our campground:

Derek had a vision of a trailer circle of love and when he discovered our door was on the wrong side, he hooked up his rhino, flipped us around, and pulled us up into our spot.

All the kids did really well and loved playing and exploring. There was a little store not to far away and they ALL took a few trips each day to spend a dollar on some candy or goodies. Sherry's sister and her family were there as were Derek's parents and his brother and sister and their families. There were lots of kids to run around with and they all got plenty dirty climbing around and hiking in the hills behind our camp.

The happy hosts:

On Thursday the kids played and fished and played Go Fish.

Let me just give a shout out for Tyler being Super Dad. Really, he's a great help with the kids and spends time with them doing whatever makes them happy. Derek rented a "party boat" and it was party time. Caylee lasted an hour, but the other three stayed the distance for some good results:

Brock was plum tuckered!

Which meant nap time when they got back. I loved this time because I actually got to scrapbook in my trailer while the boys slept. I wasn't chasing or referreeing or anything but what I wanted to be doing. I kinda love those selfish minutes.

Sherry and I got matching shirts courtesy of Tyler and Derek's last fishing trip. Ever see a photo of yourself and think, "Ew gross I have got to lose weight?" Yeah, this would be one of those. But, the SAGE bling looks good nonetheless (if you're in to advertising for your husband's fly-fishing brand.)

Doesn't this remind you of the picture with Brock and the Layton's dog in Huntsville? This poor kid needs a dog . . . but he has a baby brother instead. LUCKY!

Friday was a great day, too. The kids went fishing again in the morning and the girls had a little beauty shop going on. We played some games and then boo-yeah we got us a major thunder storm with the works. Yeah, the works would be lightening, thunder, and even hail! Tyler took the little boys to LOA, UT (seriously, it stands for Love One Another) and they missed the big storm, but we were really happy because being cooped up in the trailers was hard enough for the girls. Plus Derek caught this fatty:

Tyler was one of the cooks and YUMMY.

Oh, and have I mentioned we're potty trained. Not that I'll toot the "No accidents" horn, but we're doing okay as long as we ask him if he needs to go. When he had an accident right before we left, Tyler cut his undies off and trashed them. You gotta love kid #4. With #1 I would have scrubbed them clean.

The boys watching a movie during the storm.

Our circle of trailer love during breakfast:

One day I'm going to do a scrapbook page about how many pictures I have of this:

Beautiful Fish Lake, Utah

Love these boys!

This is meltdown 496 of Caylee's for the weekend. This one was caused by not having any more clean shorts and not wanting to wear her pants. Whatever. I took a series of these photos, which one day I'll mail to her when she complains to me about her 6 year old drama queen.

Ahhhh Nature.

And, finally, there is nothing that slams me back to reality than this:

That's right! Who'd ever thought we'd be paying this much for gas. And yes, these jaunts to Utah to make memories and escape the heat have been costing us diesel prices. Oh yeah, baby. Check out the truck stop in Cedar (it was actually only $4.48/gal, SUCH a steal of a deal.)