The kids and I took two weeks and went to my parents house in Layton. The first weekend we were there we had a Firth Family Reunion (my great grandparent on my dad's side), Dad and his siblings were incharge. Since the reunion was to be held at my parents house and Dad's siblings live farther away, dad did a lot of the organizing the events. They decided on a Mountain Man Randavou theme. A good family friend Rod Larkin is a true Mountain Man so he let us borrow his full size T-Pee (which was really big) and then came and helped us shoot bows/arrows and throw the tamahawk. That night we camped out either in the t-pee or in our tents. It was a lot of fun to see the extended family. Growing up we did a lot with the extended family and now living so far away I am very thankful for blogs and facebook to keep in touch. I sometimes get sad that my children will not have the close relationship with thier cousins that I had with mine.
The whole next week we went with my immidiate family to Smith Moorehouse Campgrounds up in oakley/kamas area and camped. We were right next to a river and there was a small lake for fishing and canoeing close by. It rained for the first two days (not cool at all) but then the rest of the week was beautiful. During one of the rainstorms, the family was huddled under the tent that covered the food table, I looked out the window and either a flash of lightning or a serious gust of wind made a tree break in half and land right in front of my tent. Thankfully it only landed on the corner of the tent and only put a small hole in the corner. That was crazy, it could have been so much worst.
I felt very blessed that no one was in the tent or that the tree did not fall in the center of the tent. I expressed to the boys,"Heavenly Father sure did bless us by not having the tree do more damage." Cooper responded, "If Heavenly Father wanted to really bless us he would not have let the tree fall at all." HA Classic Cooper. Things that we did while camping, we took the canoe out and went hiking, played lots of scattagories and of course roasted marshmellows. Cooper and Beckham are quite the pyros. Grandma bought the boys a wood carved sling shot so they spent a lot of time slinging rocks into the forest. One day Cooper earned $5 for floating down 15 feet of the river. The water was SO SO cold. Beckham earned $10 for jumping out of the canoe into the lake. Again this was so cold they deffintaly earned that money. One of the boys favorite times of the days was when it was time to start the fire. They (especially Cooper) are total pyros. Quincey never and I mean never stepped a foot on the ground. I brought up an extra pack and play so that she could play in that and not have to crawl around in the dirt. So she was either held or playing in the crib. She was a trooper. When we went Hiking i put her in the hiking backpack and off we went. I think that she really liked that.
The last week we went back to my parents house and spent most of the days swimming in thier pool. They have a big back yard so when we were not swimming the boys were running around back there. We also rode one of Grandpa's horses. Cooper especially liked to ride. Quincey thought it was fun too. Beckham could take or leave the riding. We had such a fun visit I felt like we could have stayed even longer. Aside from getting very little sleep with all three kids in the same room with me it was a perfect getaway.
