A Camping Adventure

So I was thinking we should go camping and enjoy some of that great nature and outdoorsiness and listen to the wind in the trees all night and hear the crickets chirping and listen to the birds wake up early in the morning.

My husband said, "Open the window. We can get all that right here plus sleep in a comfortable bed."

And he was right. But I got Desert Boy on my side and we convinced him we should go anyway.
Desert Boy was extremely excited to go camping. We didn't go far from home, and we went to a developed campground so we had bathrooms and running water nearby, nice amenities with little kids. But still, we were camping. We set up a tent and had coolers of food and buckets of supplies, and sleeping bags and sleeping pads and headlamps and loads of other stuff.

The cousins and their parents came up to eat dinner with us, which was proceeded by an Emma photoshoot.

Kayli, Megan, and Caleb were also going to stay the night with us and give Desert Boy some entertainment (or channel his energy, depending on your mindset).

Megan was dudded up in her cowboy hat and boots.

Before long the burgers and steaks were on the grill and we were ready to eat.

I'm not sure if this is Kayli's impression of the food or if she just likes making faces for the camera.

After dinner, we wandered down to the ranger evening program and learned a little about some animal adaptations to the desert.

And then it was time to eat again. After all, one of the best parts of camping is eating. We put all the ingredients pictured above together to make some yummy S'mores.

I hadn't had one in a long time and I had forgotten how good they are!

Then it was time to get in the tent. The kids had a little tent party, while my husband and I relaxed a bit outside. Then it was time for us to go to bed.

My husband looked in the tent and said, "I'm going to go sleep in the van."

What? That left me and five kids in the tent. What a wuss.

Actually, I was just jealous he had thought of it before me. Emma refused to sleep unless she was on the same tiny air mattress as me, and Desert Boy woke up before the birds even began singing, waking up his cousins (and me) in the process. I was not a happy camper in the morning.

We eventually made some breakfast burritos and that made everyone a little cheerier.

Desert Girl thought camping was fun because she got to play in the dirt.

Then I asked the cousins to take Desert Boy for a walk and my husband to take Desert Girl and I went back into the tent and went to sleep.

When I got up, I wandered out to see where the kids were, and they were playing school in the picnic area.

Caleb had a lot of fun cutting things with his knife, and Desert Boy really wanted to help.

My hubby came down and joined in the fun.

And because you can't have fun in our world unless you get dirty, Desert Boy went over to the fire pit and started playing with the charred bits of wood.

Ah, good times. Caleb and Desert Boy.

Megan.
Kayli.
And Emma, who managed to get a stick and eat it.

This is an interesting texture and flavor. A little chewy, with a tangy wood taste. Perhaps I should try eating more sticks.

On second thought, the aftertaste isn't so great. Perhaps I'll reconsider.

Maybe I should stick to dirt and leaves.

Desert Boy still asks almost every day if we can go camping again, so I guess that means it was a successful trip!

We packed everything up so that it will be easier to go the next time. Now I just need to work up the nerve and not think so much about my comfortable bed.

A Starry, Musical Night

One of the benefits of living in the desert is the lack of atmosphere. That means low humidity and clear night skies, without too much bending of light rays and so forth. I'd try to explain further, but I don't want to confuse you with all the technical jargon (ha, ha). I just know that I really appreciate our nighttime temperatures dropping by 20 degrees or more so we can sleep well during the summer.

And when you live out in the middle of nowhere, you also have very low light pollution, making it a wonderful place to enjoy looking up at the night sky. When you see the myriad of stars in the vast night sky, suddenly all your problems seem quite minor.

To celebrate the great night skies, we went to the first evening of an Astronomy Festival at Great Basin National Park last night. There was a concert with a variety of sky- and star-related musical acts, and Desert Boy even got to participate.

He was so eager to sing, he sang the first time all by himself. Then we told him he had to do it again with the other kids, and he willingly obliged. He likes being on center stage, our little drama king (and with the three-year old tantrums he's been having lately, drama king is the perfect nickname for him right now!).


To see more from the concert, click here.

Hap Birth, Em!

First off, the credit for the title of this post goes to my clever sister-in-law Sarah.

Now I'll explain. Little Miss Emma turned six months on Sunday, and in honor of her half a year, we made half a cake. Well, rather than make half a cake, we designated half the cake for Emma and half for Kara, who shares her birthday.
It turned out quite a bit better than my Elmo cupcakes. We took it to Sunday evening softball to celebrate and sang Happy Birthday to Kara's brother, who actually had a birthday that day. So it was a fun multi-celebration, and everyone was happy because there was cake!

Even Emma enjoyed the celebration. She sure didn't want to be left out, and it's not that hard to remove chocolate stains, right?

The Big Water Fight

Sunday evenings we often go down to the softball field for some jovial softball and socializing. Last Sunday there was an added attraction (or perhaps distraction) to the softball.

My brother-in-law had brought a trough and filled it with water, and those that were hot were enjoying the cooling water.

It didn't take long for water lover Desert Boy to find himself in the makeshift pool.

Some people had brought along super soakers and were spreading the cool.

There were some off-limit areas, so those who wanted to stay dry could.

As more people came, more got involved with getting wet.


Clay quickly found himself soaking wet, and a little cup wasn't giving him much payback power.

Ava enjoyed playing in the water.

Hector was dry in an earlier photo, but is wet here, while my husband looks mostly dry. But not for long!

He somehow ended up being a target for a couple little girls, and gradually got wetter and wetter.

He didn't mind. It was a hot day!

Laura really enjoyed dumping coolers of water on people. She was willing to get soaked in return.

Breanna didn't get away quite fast enough!

My hubby got surprised again with another pitcher of water poured on him.

And Clay can't stop laughing. He might know what's about to happen.

And another pitcher! It was too hot to stay even partially dry!

Tana ended up in the fray and found a cooler to get more people wet!

Clay has upgraded from the little red cup to a big pitcher. Obviously, creative tools were at work during the water fight.

Eventually we got around to softball, and most everyone started off nice and cool and wet.

A Good Day

I was going through my July photos and realized I still needed to post the last full day of my brother Ed's visit. When you take a lot of photos, they sometimes overwhelm you. Someday, when they develop a system when you can just think "Delete," and the computer deletes the photos for you, or "Name it this" and the photo is automatically named, or "Crop" and the photo is cropped perfectly, I might not get so far behind.

We got kind of a late start that day, and it wasn't until after lunch that we made it up to the trailhead. Both Desert Boy and Desert Girl fell asleep on the drive, so I told my brother to go ahead and we would meet him later. I enjoyed taking photos of flowers and the time passed quickly. Then they woke up and it was time to hit the trail. It was cool, and I had forgotten to bring a jacket for Desert Boy, so he wore one of my shirts. He thought it was fun wearing mommy's clothing.

Hiking with Desert Boy is a series of distractions. He hikes well if he doesn't think about it. So we are always looking for games, like counting how many dead, hollowed out logs we can find. Or crossing bridges. Or moving wood around. Or looking for insects, especially butterflies, he can chase. Or thinking about the snack that he'll get if he goes to the top of the next hill.

We reached the trail intersection and sat down to have a snack. Shortly Ed came down the trail and met us, and we decided to go a tenth of a mile to a subalpine lake.

Desert Boy was all for that plan, because it meant he could have yet another snack and play the squishing game. The squishing game is a favorite, and Desert Boy is equally happy being the squisher or the squishee. As long as he isn't squished too much.

Soon it was time to go, so they posed for a photo by the nearly full lake (a bit of a surprise for early July--often more has already evaporated) and we headed out.

We were a little late for our next activity, so Desert Boy got to ride on Uncle Ed's shoulders until the end. He thought that was a good way to travel!

Our next activity involved canyoneering with a five-month old. Sounds reasonable, right? Okay, we were actually having a picnic at the reservoir and the steaks were taking forever to cook. So we started on a little hike, which led to this gorge, and we couldn't resist going to the bottom of it to check it out.

Ed passed Desert Girl down to my husband.

Then it was time to find a way down with Desert Boy.

There were little waterfalls and pools of water, just perfect for playing in on a summer evening.

While we were playing, my husband and Desert Girl were taking a little break.

Desert Boy got plenty wet.

Then I ran back to check on the steaks and they were done. Yum.

Emma enjoyed licking one.

It was relaxing, a good way to end the day.

Emma wasn't too sure at first about her uncle holding her. She definitely has the concerned look down pretty well.

But then she decides, I like my uncle holding me.
More steak, please?