First Camping Trip of the Season!

Last week, I said to Grig, "Let's go camping this weekend." 

He thought about it, and once we checked the calendar to make sure it was free, said, "Sure."

So, Friday night, we drove up to our favorite free place to go camping and went to our regular place. It was covered in RV's. We had forgotten it was Memorial Day weekend. (That happens when you don't have any kids in school.)

So, we drove around the lake until we found a pretty secluded place (still nearby the restrooms) and camped there. Kevin fell asleep while we were looking for a place, which was okay since it was raining, so he stayed in the car while we unloaded. The dogs were pretty excited about the water. 

 As we set up our tent and stirred up the dying embers that someone else had left, we spotted a bird out on the water. Grig wondered if it was a loon. I wasn't sure. Later we found out it was a grebe. I think it's a western grebe, though it could be a Clark's grebe. Anyway, we were pretty excited to see them.

 The sunset on the lake was beautiful, and though it was a little chilly, once the rain stopped, it wasn't too bad.

 Right after it stopped raining, Kevin woke up. His first word as he got out of the car was, "Wow!"

He was pretty excited. He clambered over the rocks to get to his father, and the dogs were right behind him. Half way through this trip, we discovered that Siff is well-camouflaged. Can you find her in the picture below? It took me a second when I was flipping through pictures.

 Arkhon was pretty happy to be back at this lake. I took a similar picture of him and Dakota last year. It made me a little sad to return to this lake, just because it was the last time I saw Dakota REALLY happy.

Dakota and Arkhon last year, before she died.

She loved it here. Being back to the lake made me remember how I was swimming, and my old, fifteen-year-old dog swam out to me, even though I was pretty far out. She was so happy while we were camping. Seeing Arkhon sitting alone by the lake made me really aware of her loss again. He's really grown up since she left us.

Arkhon, now leading a new generation.

 As it got darker, we tied the dogs up so they wouldn't wander off and get lost. We sat around the campfire and cooked hot dogs and marshmallows.

Suddenly, Siff started woofing; very quietly and softly. We heard a twig snap, and I whipped my camera in the direction of the sound. An eye gleamed green in the light of the camera, and I got the impression of a large animal (at least as big as a large dog). It wasn't too far away, but we lost sight of it pretty quickly in the darkness. Kevin got a little scared, but the dogs were calm so it was probably a deer or a dog. It's hard to know. I would really like to know what it was, but it left us alone, so we didn't chase it either.

We went to bed soon after. Siff slept against the outside of our tent all night. She loved being outside and with us. I don't think we ever saw her too hot the whole trip. Arkhon curled up nearby as well, and we slept, protected by our hounds.

The next morning we woke up early. Grig already had a fire going, so we ate our breakfast of muffins and doughnuts and then played for a while.

In this picture, Kevin is using the fire-poking stick as a weapon. He is shooting his "gun."

After a couple of hours, Grig got tired and took a nap while Kevin and I explored the surrounding area. We were excited to see a different kind of bird, which was correctly identified as a cormorant (though the actual species is a double-crested cormorant.) We actually caught one on video eating a fish. That was pretty cool.

We realized again how different Siff and Arkhon are. When Arkhon was a puppy, and we came camping, it took him two days to finally be exhausted. Siff was tired after the first night. She was really happy though, and even off the leash stuck around. Arkhon disappeared one time (which really surprised and worried us). He didn't come when he was called, which is nearly unheard of for him, and so we started worrying that he had been hit by a car or stolen. In all actuality, he had found the dumpster, and his nose had turned off his ears. After that, he listened a lot better, and didn't wander anymore, but we were a bit upset with him.

Kevin and I found a neat place by a couple of trees where we found some nice round rocks. Those rocks became dinosaur eggs, and the t-rex Kevin protected them from the dogs and me. They eventually hatched, though when I tried to pick one up that I thought had wandered from the nest, he told me that they were all still with the eggs. It turns out, I don't always imagine the same things as my son.

We were pretty close to the boat dock, so after a while, our peace was broken by people unloading their boats. Grig woke up about then, and we did some climbing and exploring.

 This was a particularly fun fallen tree. You could balance on it and bounce up and down. It made me feel like a kid again.

 These are the boys running down the boat ramp. Siff and I enjoyed watching them. Right after this picture was taken, Arkhon cut in front of Kevin and made him trip. It was an accident, but Kevin skinned his knee a bit. A few minutes later, they were right back to it.

 I found a cozy tree to climb into, and Kevin joined me. It was so nice to be out in nature. About this time, I found a really good stick and threw it into the water. Up to this point, Arkhon and Siff had been wading, but not really swimming. Arkhon finally remembered that he knew how to swim. After that, he fetched the stick nearly a dozen times.

He was a great swimmer. Eventually, he was tired out, and then he didn't want to swim anymore. Siff would get chest-deep, but she wasn't motivated enough to really try.

 Then, around noon, we put on our swimming suits and got into the water. The water was cold, but after a few minutes of moving, it felt warm to me. Grig said it never felt warm to him, but we all had a great time. Kevin plunged right in, and would walk through the water while moving his arms and call it "swimming." I made Siff swim one time too, but that was enough for her. I think as summer gains heat, they'll be more excited about it.

After a while, Kevin started to shiver, but after eating a doughnut, he wanted to get back into the water. I really enjoyed swimming too, though at one point, I was pretty far out, and a truck pulled up and began to back its boat down the dock. I had to rush back to shore to get out of the way, and after that I was tired.

After a while, Grig made us lunch of ham sandwiches, and we warmed up and ate. Here, Kevin is hiding under his towel. I think he's pretty hilarious.

 Here's our tent hidden in the trees. We'd found a spot with great cover, but it was pretty lumpy.

 Everyone felt really rejuvenated. It was hard to leave, but we had to get back home. We had some things we needed to get done before the Sabbath.

It really made us grateful for this world that our Heavenly Father has given us. Things worked out really well, and we were so grateful that we found a place away from most of the Memorial Day campers. It got a little loud after a while with all the boats blaring music on the lake, but we still were pretty far away from most of the craziness. We didn't fish this time, because I need to renew my license, but we still had a really good time and enjoyed spending time together as a family.

Hopefully we'll be going again soon!

Large Bruises and Head-Diapers

On Saturday, it was super hot in our apartment. So, Grig, Kevin, and I decided to go and wade down the river nearby our home.

We had a great time. There are a few really deep bends in the river where the water is over my head, so we could walk and carry Kevin through the shallows and then take turns watching him and swimming in the deeper water. He really enjoyed himself. He loves water, and his favorite game right now is to throw rocks in and watch them splash. He's pretty careful about the water's edge, and he doesn't really like being in the cold water too long, but we still watch him very carefully. All it takes is a moment.

At one point, Grig was swimming in a deeper pool and Kevin and I were playing a game. Kevin would stand on a rock (holding my hand) and then jump off it into the water. It was only waist-deep on him. At first, he would wait until I had put him back on the rock, but by the end he was walking against the current to get back on the rock himself.

As I was just thinking about that, I thought that was pretty applicable to life. At first, we generally can't handle the force of the river (or our trials) on our own, but as we grow stronger and more used to the current, we find that we can struggle and succeed even against the most powerful of forces. Eventually, we can even try to stand on our own. By the end, Kevin was able to stand on the rock and jump into my arms. He loved that.

After that, he started splashing me, which he thought was hilarious. We sat there and laughed for quite a while. I love my little boy's laugh. There's nothing quite like it.

We made it all the way down the river and made a few new friends along the way. A lot of other people had decided to go inner tubing that day as well, and we enjoyed watching them pass us. Sometimes they'd stop and join us in swimming in the deeper water too. A couple of young men in particular started jumping off the shore line with Grig into a deeper pool. They had a good time.

When we got home, I was surprised to find that my calf kind of hurt. The next day, this beauty showed up:

Beautiful colors, no?

Isn't it pretty?

Who knows when I got that. That happens a lot, actually. I don't always notice pain until much later. It must take a long time to travel to my brain. Either that, or my legs were numb from the cold. 

It's probably one of those two.

Yesterday, Kevin came running out of his room with a diaper on his head. I'm not really sure why, maybe he was worried about his head leaking. 

Here's a bit of Kevin-cuteness for you.

Our camera is officially not working. Luckily, Grig has an older camera from before we were married, and we've been able to use that. I'm pretty sad though, I loved my camera. We're planning on saving up for a really nice one. Canon or Nikon? What's your opinion on that?

And finally, for those of you who are wondering, Kevin slept much better last night. Grig got him to go to sleep about 9:30 p.m., but when I went to move him to his bed, he woke up. So, I got him back to sleep (without nursing!) and he slept pretty good until much later in the night. I had been praying that when he came in, I would be awake enough to take him back to his room, and my prayers were answered. It was still tough to want to get out of bed, but I was able to do it. He's still asleep in his room!

Pretty exciting. Hopefully this is where it starts getting easier.

A Late Night and Freezing Rivers

Grig doesn't have work this week (which isn't so good), but we decided not to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. So yesterday, we spent some time swimming in the cold Utah rivers.

Kevin didn't especially like the freezing water, but he would wade in it up to his knees.

It took a little while to get used to the temperature, but by the end I didn't want to get out of the water. Grig started getting cold, and so I finally climbed onto shore. I found, to my surprise, that my hands were numb with this cold.

Another strange side-effect was that it took me forever to get warm again. Usually the interior of our apartment makes me sweat, but last night I was freezing for the longest time.

Yesterday was also a day of landmarks.

Grig got Kevin to go to sleep last night, which has almost never happened before. It happened briefly on Sunday night. Kevin fell asleep on Grig's head while we were out walking on a trail along the river. Grig really liked that. Last night, he held and rocked Kevin until Kevin drifted off to sleep.

A few hours later, Kevin woke up and I decided that I didn't want to nurse him back to sleep. So, we did battle for about 2 1/2- 3 hours. It was a good night for it. I was full of patience. I didn't force him to lay down, I just laid next to him on his bed and kept him from leaving it. If he would let me, I would hug and kiss him and snuggle with him, but he didn't want me to touch him very often.

Finally, about 3:30 a.m. he gave up the fight. He settled on top of me and fell asleep. That was a nice moment. We're trying to teach him how to fall asleep on his own in his own room, and it has been quite the crazy last couple of weeks.

We're making progress and it's been nice to mostly have our bed back to ourselves.

Grig's going to try and put Kevin to bed again today. We'll see how it goes.

Swimming with Kevin

 Yesterday, we had a birthday party for my Uncle.  We enjoyed a nice swim at the local water park.  Kevin loves water.  It wasn't super warm, but he enjoyed swimming in it for a couple hours until he started to get cold. 
Grig's brother has been living with us, and he and Kevin get along great.  So, for part of the party Grig and I went down the water slides while Kevin enjoyed being with his uncle.  There were two slides.  One was very curvy and longer, and at first Grig and I wanted to slide down that one because we thought the other slide was just for kids.  However, when we got to the top, it turned out that all the kids were on the curvy slide, and the straight slide had only older kids on it.

So, after we went down once, and found out that the curvy slide was pretty slow, we went and grabbed Kevin and took him down a couple times.  He was really cute.  His hair was sticking up in all directions, and a few of the kids on the slide to a fancy to him.  One little boy called him 'fluffy-head' and patted him on the head.  Kevin loved it!  He loves other kids.

Then, we handed Kevin back to his uncle, and went down the straight slide.  It wasn't until I'd launched myself that I realized what I'd gotten into.  The straight slide was straight...with a 20 foot sheer drop.  I ended up screaming on the way down.  It was great!

So, we did it again.  Of course, we didn't bring Kevin on that one, and soon after he got cold so we had to leave for the dinner party.  We had a great time!