We Survived!

We recently purchased ourselves a new toy. It's a brand-spankin' new tent trailer (even smells new, mmmm!) and this past weekend we took it on its maiden voyage. It was definitely a learning experience considering my Mom and I towed it up there alone. I had set it up and taken it down several times and felt comfortable with that aspect of the trailer, but when it came to the filling of the water tanks and lighting of the furnace, I was clueless. One might naturally say "Why didn't you consult your manual for proper instructions?" which is a valid question. However the dealership had supposedly ordered one and we had not received it yet.

Here is the beauty in all her splendor. For the record, if you ever want to fill the tank of a trailer, your best bet is to put it in the proper place and not hook it up to what seasoned campers call the "city water hookup". You will most likely end up with a half inch of water on your floor followed by many expletives. I'm just saying. This was our spectacular view of Mount Timpanogas.
This should have been a warning of things to come.
Some sort of unique thistle plant with a bug on it.

Believe it or not that is a smile, not because Doug is squeezing him too hard. Tyson only smiles when you tell him to "show us your teeth". Thus the cheesy grin. I'll take what I can get.

This trip was for our Wright Family Reunion so we had a few family members camping with us. We knew we were in for it when the clouds rolled in and the rain started coming down hard. Fortunately we had a pavilion to take cover under and a huge fire pit to hang out by.

I even busted out my new Snuggie to help keep warm. I of course thought of good ol' Kristina and her Snuggie obsession. It was SO cold!

My cute angel baby!

My Grandpa Wright with great-grandson Ethan.

The cloudy mist rolled in and hid Timpanogas.

Tyson enjoyed playing with his cousins.

The annual dutch oven cookoff was a hit! We participated for the first time this year (my beans and chicken pot pie are at the bottom of the photo). We didn't win this year but made a good showing and are already making plans for next year's dishes!

My Aunt Ruth, cousin Jennifer from Colorado and my Dad catching up.

Aside from the cold and the rain, the trip was a success and we got to visit with lots of family members that we don't see very often. Tyson was a huge hit of course and keeps asking when we are going camping again. "With dirt?" he of course asks. Of course there will be dirt.

Sunrise in Vernon, Utah

Where is Vernon, you ask? I asked the same thing on my first trip there. It is a small (as in no stop lights small) town in the west desert. Waaaaaaaay past Tooele. We had camped over night and I woke up to this beautiful sunrise.

Camping - 4th of July

We went camping last weekend. For anyone who has never camped with a 12 month old, let me describe it to you in one word:

DIRTY

I must have had this naive expectation of sitting around the campfire making marshmallows, playing cards or going for explorative hikes. Boy could I have not been more wrong. Ok well we did go for one walk that could have been labeled explorative, but it was by no means a hike. I spent the entire two and a half days following Tyson around with a wet wipe and examining the rocks he kept presenting to me like they were rare gems he had come across.

Tyson got a little mad because I wouldn't let him put them in his mouth.

But he got over it and had a blast playing inside the trailer (with Doug on the outside) against the screen.

We did manage to have some fun though. We took the dogs (all 5 - yes that's right 5) to Mirror Lake to play in the water. Here's where the venting part of this blog comes in... I realized this weekend that I don't have any great affection for fisherman. There's nothing worse than walking around a huge body of water that my dogs are dying to jump into and having no where that we can throw a stick and let them get wet. You see, fisherman can be kind of snooty. That is, they tend to get ticked when you start splashing around the water in close proximity to where they're at. Now, I understand the point behind fishing and normally don't mind finding somewhere relatively fisherman-free but the lake was PACKED and we had to walk quite a ways. Eventually though we found a spot and were able to let the pups get some swimming in.


We also made a stop at the Provo River Falls overlook, which I had never been to. It was beautiful! We are definitely going to have to stop there again when we go to Mirror Lake over the 24th of July... It's a great place to take the dogs to play in the water!