Our Summer of Camping

Well, sadly we have made it to the end our camping season.  As stressful and crazy as it is to get ready for camping, once we get there, it is great!  I love sitting around a campfire at night and watching the zillions of stars hoping to find a shooting one.  I love cooking outdoors - it always tastes better.  I love watching the kids run and play, build forts, dig holes, pick flowers, and find bugs.  And, I especially love camping with our friends and neighbors.  I have said if before and I'll say it again.... we are so blessed to have such great friends and neighbors!

This year we started the season early by going to Little Sahara Sand Dunes at the end of March.  My anniversary to be exact.  Don't worry, Aaron totally made up for it!  The weather did not cooperate and we ended up setting up a table in the back of our trailer and spent the entire weekend huddled together playing card games - no pics.  Bummer!  We still had a lot of fun.  I think at one point we had around 21 people in our trailer - CRAZY!

But, things got better as the season progressed.  We have been back to the Sand Dunes 3 times, Bear Lake once, Soapstone once, and Strawberry Lake once.  But, no matter where we end up, we always have a great time!  Here are a few of our highlights:

We caught Crawdads in Strawberry Lake.

Chad Collotzi cooking up some crawdads - Gross!

 Getting Ready to fish at Strawberry Lake

Aaron & Me and Chad & Celena Collotzi - Strawberry Lake

Look who learned to ride a motorcycle... Alex! 

All the kids playing in the biggest sandpile ever - Sand Dunes

Aaron teaching Alex how to ride the 4 wheeler at Cherry Creek

Now, we can't get him off of it!

Abbi loves 4-wheeling

Adam revving up the mini bike.

The gang hanging out at a small lake we found near Cherry Creek

Is there anything better than a boy, his dump truck, and dirt?

Aaron and me at Soapstone - so pretty!

Well, the temps have dropped, the leaves have fallen, and it is now time to winterize the beast of a trailer.  

Until next year!

Vegas and St George

The kids had a long break from school this October, 4 weeks to be exact, and I decided to take them down to Las Vegas/ St. George for a vacation.  Me and the kids left on a Wednesday afternoon and made the 6 hour drive down to Las Vegas.  Aaron was going to fly into Las Vegas on Friday where we would pick him up to finish out the vacation.  

For lunch we stopped at our favorite hamburger place: In-n-Out Burger.  We couldn't find a place to sit, so we made an impromptu picnic in the back of the Escalade.

We basically spent most of our time swimming at the pool, which the kids couldn't get enough of.  And I made them go to my favorite home decor store, Kirklands.  On Saturday, after Aaron joined us, we decided to go to the Children's Museum in Las Vegas.  The kids had so much fun!  It was hilarious to watch Alex.  It was like he was the Road Runner, quickly running from one exhibit to the other.  He was so excited with all the activities.  

Adam, Abbi, and Alex, and even Mom and Dad had fun creating HUGE bubbles at this station.

Alex's favorite was this station.  He loved "fixing" the car.

And, what Children's museum would be complete without the "Grocery Store" Station?

Here is Abbi and Alex in the hurricane tunnel.

The second half of our trip was spent in St. George.  Here again, we swam and swam.  We got out of the pool long enough to do a little miniature golfing ( I won, by the way) and race cart driving.

We also stopped by the St George temple to take some pics.

EO in Moab

Welcome to Moab, Utah.  Home of Utah's adventure Capitol (at least according to utah.com).  Can you believe that Aaron and I have never been to Moab?  I know, people come from all over the world to find adventure here in our backyard, but we have never experienced it.  That is, until Aaron's EO group (Entreprenuer's Organization) put together a quick one night getaway and invited us to go.  It took all of about 2 seconds to say "Yep, we'll be there."  We all caravanned down to Moab stopping off at several locations to fill up the gas tank and to grab drinks and snacks.  Aaron and I had a great time talking and singing in the car on the way down.  Okay, Aaron talked on the phone and I sang, but who's keeping track?  We stayed at a quaint ranch up the mountain above Moab.  The kids would have loved it!

They even had teepees.  So cool!

That night, they fed us a chuckwagon dinner complete with steak, potatoes, vegies, the whole works.  It was yummy!  In the morning, the guys took off to do a little mountain biking on Slick Rock and Hillary and I went into town for a luxurious 60 minute massage.  It was heaven!  After that we were supposed to take a jeep ride adventure over the rocks, but because of some miscommunication, we were unable to do it.  Oh well, Aaron and decided instead to do some sightseeing through Arches National Park.  

We had a great time exploring Moab for the first time.  Maybe next year we'll bring the kids with us.  I think they would love it!

Our Summer Concert Series

I am a country girl at heart and this summer Aaron surprised me with tickets to some great Country musicians playing at the Usana Amphitheater.  Of course, I had to wear my cowboy hat:

We saw:

My all time favorite: Tim McGraw

He came with this cutie:

Luke Bryan

And these guys:

The Band Perry

Tim's was a great concert, although, I don't think Aaron and I quite fit in with all the beer drinkin', daisy duke wearin' crowd.  At one point, I turned to Aaron and said, "Do you feel old?"  He replied, "I would feel old, except there are people older than us here."  Ha Ha!  We still had a great time.  Tim played some of his old and new stuff.

The next concert we went to was:

Rascal Flats

With Sara Evans

Great Concerts shared with my great hubby!  What more could a country girl ask for?