a day at the lake in huntsville and more.

saturday we had the privilege to visit family friends, tadd, jenn, maddy, lizzie and belle at their home in beautiful huntsville.  they live about a mile and a half from pineview reservoir and we spent the afternoon soaking up {too much} sun, boating, swimming and playing in the sand.

                  

we have loved spending more time with our cousins this past year since they moved out west from philadelphia.  we are sad to see them go on their next adventure to north dakota, where nick got a job as an interventional radiologist!  we are proud of all of their hard work as a family and accomplishments of making it through medical school, residency and this last year of fellowship!

even baby stella enjoyed the sun in her new beach lounge! (olivia was so excited to snag this at D.I. the other day for a $1!!!)

(didn't realize i had a photo-bomber until i saw the pic on the computer!)

maddy rode her bike to the beach after she got home from work.  tim was kind enough to offer to ride it back home for her, what a guy!

i failed to get more beach pictures and boating because we were too busy having fun and relaxing!

after the beach we headed over to the judds' house and enjoyed their idyllic location at the base of the mountains in beautiful farmland.  they had a big sprawling front yard with tire swings, a trampoline and lots of room to run.  the kids had a great time while the ladies chatted and the men bbq'd.

lizzie wouldn't get in the first pic so she photo-bombed the next one!

lexi tuckered out for a bit and had a cat nap before dinner

 after dinner and clean-up the kids got up into the wagon and had a dance party! while we waited for it to get dark for our outside movie!

lizzie, belle, livy, evy, lexi, brady and auntie nickie leading the dance moves!

 then we got all of the kiddos (even baby brielle) in for a picture!

evy and zach dancing to frozen's "let it go"

chris took nickie for a quick whirl before grabbing evy and making some moves with her!  we have some very good dancers in this family!  olivia danced around for about a half hour doing moves with a purple feather boa and a pink pool noodle!

                             

tadd and jenn- such a fun couple!

we settled down at dark to some dutch oven peach cobbler, homemade oreo cookies and scotch-aroos to watch a movie on the projector.  it got a little cold towards the end but we stayed through it all and had such a fun time...a new yearly tradition ?!

thank you so much everyone, and especially tadd, jenn and the girls for such a fun day!!!!  we got home at 2 a.m. on sunday morning but the sleep deprivation was worth it! next time we'll be pitching tents!

grammie and grandpa followed us home and stayed over and after relaxing for the morning and doting over sunburns we headed up middle canyon to see the kennecott copper mine overlook.  the mine is 2.5 miles wide and is one of two man-made structures that can be seen from space!  right in our "backyard!"  it was about 12 miles up the canyon to the summit and much longer than we anticipated but the gravel roads weren't too bad, just a lot of hairpin switchbacks.  luckily, once we got up to about 8 miles we realized that when we came back down from t he summit to that point we could continue down the backside of the mountain to herriman instead of going back down to tooele and around the mountain to slc, since we were eventually headed to nick and nickie's for a bbq.

the kids were a little nervous about the skinny dirt road and the height but we had beautiful views, tons of gorgeous wildflowers in red, yellow, white, purple and blues and this great sight at the top:

{livy not pictures, she was squeamish of the heights and chose to stay in the car}

and no i'm not just chubby, i'm finally just about 7 months along with baby #4!!!

thanks for joining us on the adventure grammie and grandpa!

not only could you see the mine, but we could see from bountiful all the way down to lake provo!  the entire salt lake valley, as well as views of the great salt lake and on the other side...our tiny tooele!

when we finally got to nick and nickie's we met them and shawnae, tim and brielle.  everyone had a relaxing day which we all needed.  lexi and chloe weren't feeling good and olivia actually got sick in the car coming down the mountain so she's been under-the-weather since.  but we enjoyed a great family dinner and playing outside all afternoon.

lexi did some great sidewalk art of a snail and a turtle and we were all impressed with her detail!

happy trails...until the 4th of july family!

a camping we will go. memorial day weekend 2014.

funny, but after moving from idaho we went right back up the first chance we got!  we needed to bring some boxes back up to our storage in IF and get zach's toddler bed and mattress that we didn't think we'd need here, but ended up needing due to space.  our friends, aaron and tiffany and their kiddos met up with us at rigby lake for a weekend of camping adventure.

the lake wasn't filled yet, about 1/4 of the way, so we did do some splashing and playing by the water...we'd love to make this an annual trip, but will definitely go later in the season when there is less chance of high winds {hopefully} and a lake to swim in.

we brought brady's metal detector, hoping to find some great treasures left behind by beach-goers, but the boys found a lot of trash instead.  oh well, we did our part to clean up the beach!

we arrived late on friday evening, and thankfully aaron and tiff already had camp and our borrowed tent set-up!  what a huge help!  we unloaded necessary items for the night, changed into p.j.'s and hit the sleeping bags.  the kids and chris fell asleep right away...i was awake until sometime around 4:00 a.m. the high winds were causing our tent stakes to uproot, so i had to fix them and the tent fly several times. the flapping of the tent wall and fly was so loud i couldn't fall asleep, not to mention some very hard ground and a small mattress pad that i had been hopeful would provide more comfort than it did.  

the next morning, although groggy and {slightly} cranky we aroused to crisp air and settled down winds, although still very breezy at camp.  i had made up some tin-foil breakfast packets the day before so we got a small fire going and cooked those (which were delicious) with a side of bananas and strawberries.  the only thing we were missing was some O.J.

lumberjack tin-foil breakfast packets:

pre-roasted or left-over potatoes, diced

eggs

breakfast sausage patties

chopped onion, peppers

shredded cheese

salt & pepper

lightly spray tin foil with oil.  layer sausage on bottom, then potatoes, peppers and onions and cheese. right before adding on fire add in the number of eggs you'd like in each packet.  (the eggs kind of ended up cooking to the foil and i didn't feel that they were completely necessary.  the sausage, potatoes and veggies were delicious, so next time i think we'll omit the eggs from the packet and cook separately).

wrap in double-foil and mark for each person.  cook on hot coals for about 30 minutes, turning halfway through.

recipe from here.

the boys all enjoyed stoking the fire and kept it going with their continuous searches for sticks and branches. (please excuse picture quality on a lot of these...iphone pics...)

                                           

brady, max & ethan

after playing around for a bit and exploring our site and the lake we parted ways with our friends for the afternoon as they had family plans and so did we.  we headed into town, stopped and said hi to some friends and neighbors and unloaded boxes at the house in IF and then met up with shawnae, tim and brielle and bryce at beautiful freeman park for a picnic.  for memorial day there was a 1000 flag memorial and some free entertainment so we enjoyed hearing bagpipes, seeing live re-enactment soldiers and musket shooting as well as a local performing troupe of acrobats, aged 6-20 years old. 

olivia was hooked.  she's been doing "acrobats" ever since!

the guys went off and played disc golf with brady and shawnae and i took the littles on a walk around the beautiful park.  i really love that place.  i wish i had gotten pictures of the guys...

we threw stones into the creek...and blew "wishing lions"

olivia filled shawnae's stroller full of the "perfect" dandelions...

 
and our cute little niece, brielle slept the afternoon away!

we left freeman park and met up with our friends, rose and wes at their house for a quick visit and some ice cream cones!  i even brought my camera in to remind me to take a picture....but forgot!

after we headed back to aaron and tiff's and cooked tin-foil chicken and stuffing dinners over their fire pit and a fruit salad.  her brother and his girlfriend graciously accepted to watch ALL 7 of our combined kiddos while we adults snuck away for a double-date to the drive-in!

we were equipped with games, pillows, blankets, homemade caramel corn, drinks...but not enough cushions!  our tushies were numb!  we saw x-men and godzilla (could have passed on the latter, but the guys loved it).  tiff and i had a hard time staying awake anyway and we rolled home at around 2:30 in the morning and crashed in their living room!

the next day was sunday, and despite our best efforts to get to church in IF to visit our friends we didn't make it.  i had packed our sunday bag with us to aaron and tiff's but as we were getting kids bathed and trying to hop in showers i realized our underwear and toiletries were all still at camp, about 15 minutes away.  chris tried to hurry over and get our stuff but by the time he got back we didn't have enough time to finish getting ready and make it to church.  so we read our scriptures and church magazines instead and enjoyed a delicious pot roast lunch with our friends when they got back from their ward.

then we packed back up and headed back to camp!

the kids explored more, played in the sand/dirt, rode trikes and bikes and ate marshmallows before dinner.

      

                                        

                                        

             

then we cooked delicious steak, chicken, grilled veggies and corn on the cob over the fire with fruit salad and pasta salad on the side.

                            

                                 

our awesome baby sitters!  tiff's brother, justin and his flame courtney.

                                                

and after dinner....?  more smores!

our last night was a much better night's sleep.  i actually slept like a rock, seriously.  so exhausted from the weekend.  in the morning we had bacon, eggs, egg mcmuffins, pancakes, yogurt...played in the water, gathered up camp and went back to aaron and tiffs to play games and hang out until we had to head back home.

we are so grateful for such good friends and that our children play well and love spending time together.  our kids were so excited for this weekend.  it was a great time!