Camping Mountains Fishing

Let me start off by saying one thing i do not like to do is go camping. I am not a fan of the outdoors for a few reasons. 1. sleeping on the ground 2. no showers 3. no room to take my pillow 4. lack of a bathroom. Regardless of all of those reasons i still go anyway. I go because of the following reasons 1. my boys/my girls 2. my husband 3. bacon 4. sausage 5. campfires. I also have found its a great place to catch up on reading. I love to read and often i do not get a chance too i feel like i am always being pulled in a million directions. I found 3 books put them on my kindle...what i learned? Heart is one of the most awesome woman fronted bands of all time, Living in the Appalachian mountains at the turn of the century working in the coal mines = crappy life, George Burns is hysterical in writing and adored his sweet wife Gracie Allen...

On to the camping trip::::: side bar:::: might i say its a bit disconcerting when you are at the movies with your daughters you come out and there is the Stake President (btw wearing a Metallica shirt) telling me he knew by photo exactly where we camped...weirdo good thing he is moving :( actually that is really sad, he is a great guy and has been a wonderful influence on Shane. :::::::I am back from the sidebar.....

Our tent is a sheepherders tent we bought it a few years ago, well quite a few now that i think about it. It took our family 2 years to save up for just the tent then another year to get the poles and stakes for it. Our dog Jill is in the bottom left corner, but she is the best dog ever. I like her. Not sure what my kids will do without her, but I suppose we will have to get another dog soon. Whenever Brenda and Skyler come over she is so excited to see Brenda. She is a good pup. We take her whenever we go camping. She knows it too, this time she climbed in the truck to wait for us to go.

 The kids get really relaxed when we go camping. Shane never wants to be in the photos but i say he doesnt have a choice. The bottom photo is just one side of the tent, on the other side we have a table set up and in the corner is a wood stove. One of the days we were out this time around it rained all day. we were cozy and warm because of the stove. There were some breaks in the rain the kids decided that was the time to go swimming. At one point Jake said "My Chesters are cold" chesters = testicles. Not sure where that came from but there you have it. From a 12 year old boy. John was afraid of going in the deeper water and Laura swam to him to assure him that he could. It was nice to see them working together. It shows that in the end they are there for each other no matter what.

If you look really close you can see their heads bobbing out there in the water. I should say this was between rain down pours and it was chilly.

This time around we rented a canoe, i think there was more excitement about the canoe than most any part of the trip. Jake and John spent a good amount of time in the canoe. I went out with Jake for 20-30 mins and came back completely burned. To a crisp burned, my face arms and chest. not a good thing I am now suffering with that, but i have to say it was fun to be on the lake with him. When you get Jake alone he really likes to talk about life. Its fun to chat with him.

Shane and the boys went fishing and had a blast. They enjoyed themselves, they had a bit of a contest on who would catch the most fish of course Dad won. I think the best part was having them cook them over the fire and eating them hot off the fire. I loved that fire. I spent a lot of time sitting in front of it putting wood on it, reading and watching the fire burn. The smoke kept the mosquitoes at bay thats for sure. By the way mosquitoes out here in Idaho are much MUCH smaller than the small birds sized ones in Maine. I certainly do not miss those bugs.

There is a bit of a glitch on one side of this photo but the rest does it some justice. The sky was so lovely with clouds and the green of the trees. I loved it. I should have taken another one or  12....

These are both from the same place just one is zoomed in and the other just where i was standing. The one on the right is so pretty. The rain had come in and it snowed in the high country, there in the middle you can see where the snow in the mountains. We were camping at 5000 ft, so those mountains should be at about 7000 ft or so. It was so calm and peaceful. Lovely although i did have the music of Heart going through my head....OH and we got home and the air conditioner in the house is broken (no worries it will be fixed this week, its just annoying when its 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit out)