Birthday lunch and Craters of the Moon Over Labor Day

Monday August 1st, 2008- Monday morning was very chilly when we woke up. David had had a very rough night. He woke up at 3:30am and ended up in my sleeping bag and then was up ready to play for the day at 6:00am. Bryan was sweet and took David for a ride in the Tahoe to a near by look out while I got an extra hour of sleep. Bryan and I were in charge of breakfast. We made pancakes, Bacon and eggs, with hot chocolate. Bryan stated the camp fire and made most of the breakfast while I entertained David, and snuggled with him by the fire to keep warm. After breakfast we cleaned up and then packed up camp. We had a blast and left the camp by 11:45am. David slept until we got to Mt. home 2-2 1/2 hrs. We stopped in Mt home for gas and lunch. Chicken nuggets and burgers from Burger King. We were glad we stopped in Mt Home because a huge car accident had happened right outside of Mt Home. We ended up in a dead stop on the freeway again and were diverted off the free way and up and around the accident. Evidently a women had got on the freeway going down the wrong way and had hit head on with a diesel truck and then bounced off and hit another diesel truck. It had the whole North/West bound side of the freeway closed down. Again a 3 1/2 hour trip ended up being 5 hours. When we got home David was excited to be out of the car again. We unloaded the camping gear. Bryan weeded eated and mowed the lawn while David and I got all the camping gear unpacked and mostly put away. We had to get the cooking gear cleaned and in the dish washer and some laundry washed. After Bryan was done mowing the lawn he and David scrubbed down the propane tanks and put then away. We had a great camping trip and missed all of you who were not able to come. YOU MISSED OUT. We hope to have you along next time.

Eliza, Bryan, David and Micah snuggling around the fire to stay warm Saturday morning.

Sunday August 31st, 2008- Sunday Morning David had a little bit of a rough night. He ended up in the sleeping bag with me. We were up early and got ready for 9:00am church in Arco (18 miles and 20min away.) Scott and Amanda were trouper and had breakfast out and ready to take with us to church. We had muffins, yogurt, bagels and banana's for breakfast. We went to sacrament meeting, then did a few geo-cashes, and ended up at a small park in arco. We let the kids play on the equipment and get some energy out before returning to our camp right outside of Craters of the Moon. Scott and Amanda's children did some service at the park by picking up allot of the garbage the people had left behind. I think most of the children picked up more than 100 pieces of garbage each. Bryan & I were in charge of lunch. We had turkey, ham, cheese, apples, nectarines, grapes, string cheese, granola bars, chips, fruit snacks, and lime aide for lunch. After lunch we all helped clean up then played horse shoes and through a softball around. Amanda and Gideon took a nap. I tried to get David down for a nap but was un-successful. Kyle and Bryan and Micah and Issac had fun have an air soft gun war running all around the hills surrounding our camp site. They had a blast and it was great cause no one even got hurt. Scott and Amanda were in charge of dinner. Amanda was very prepared and had tin foil dinners all ready to place in the berkets when ready. Bryan made dutch oven cobbler for us for dessert and we even roasted marshmallows on the great camp fire that was made. Amanda even read a great story to us after dinner.

David and Daddy enjoying the dinner.

Bryan was sweet enough to share or give David his dumb-dumb succor. We had a great big sticky mess all over David but he sure enjoyed the treat.

The air-soft guns were a hit Bryan and the kids had fun.

Issac, Micah, Kyle, Danielle all decked out for the air-soft gun war.

Bryan & Kyle were on the same team They were in the process of hunting down Micah and Issac when I snapped this picture. Thomas, Scott and Eliza had fun watching the older kids.

Thomas, Scott, and Eliza had fun throwing rocks down the hill to see how far they would go. They also tried hitting a near by tree as a target.

Gideon and David in the play equipment in Arco.

Bryan, Issac, & Danielle on the play equipment.

Issac, Danielle, Eliza, & Bryan sliding down the slide.

Danielle made Bryan a deal that if he went down the slide she would give him a back rub.

Thomas and Issac on the play equipment.

David & Gideon being pushed on the swings by Bryan.

Gideon and Amanda at the swings.



Saturday August 30th, 2008- Saturday Bryan and I were in charge of breakfast. We made French toast, sausage & Orange juice. David woke up around 6:30 am and then snuggle and fell back to sleep. David slept while we made breakfast. Most of Scott and Amanda's children were up and had eaten by 8:00am. Our fun activity today was going to Craters of the Moon. Issac and Micah got to ride with us to the visitors center and cave parking area. We met (Bryan's sister) Lauri and her family (husband Shawn, and three girls Felicity, Lydia, and Evelyn) there around 10:30am and went thought the caves in the area. It was a lot of fun and the big group of us enjoyed the adventure. We ended up having 6 adults and 11children. I kept David in the back pack most of the time. He was not feeling well today and ran a fever most of the day. Thank goodness for children's Tylenol. We had lunch in front of the visitors center. Lauri and Shawn (Thurber) had brought there own lunch and Amanda made us Tuna fish sandwiches with chips and fresh peaches and grapes for lunch. After lunch we said to the Thurber family and headed back to camp. Bryan , David and I had a nap and when we woke up We headed into Arco (a near by town) to get some wasp killer, extra ice and to finds some new bolts for our canopy (while we were gone caving the wind had blown really hard and broken several of our bolts on our canopy. If we would not have had the canopy staked down so well it would have for sure blown away.). When we got back from Arco Amanda and Micah had dinner started. Scott had taken there other 6 children on a hike exploring the area around our camp site. We had a ham and potato dutch oven meal with cantaloupe for dinner. It was great.

Here are some highlights of our day.

David and Issac playing in our Tahoe

Scott, Amanda and Thomas

Bryan, Shawn, Lydia, Evelyn, Lauri, Micah, Danielle, and Felicity Fun picnick lunch.

Eve, Lydia, Lissy, Danielle, Issac & Micah

David enjoyed his lunch. He especially enjoyed the grapes.

The whole crew in the cave.

Lissy, Thomas and Amada peaking out of the cave.

Eliza, Micah and Kyle headed down to the fist cave opening.

Scott and Gideon on the path to see some of the caves.

The hike up from one of the caves.

Lissy, Issac, and Eliza

Kyle is the oldest of all the children with us. (11)

Scott and Thomas hiking into and out of a cave.

Thomas (2 1/2) loves to climb all by himself.

Bryan, David and Gina in the caving area

The Whole caving group: Gideon, Scott, Eliza, Amanda, Thomas, Danielle, Lydia, Bryan, Eve, Lissy, Kyle, Shawn, Micah, Lauri and Issac (David and I are taking the picture)

Gideon, Scott, Eliza, Thomas, Amanda, Danielle, Lydia, Eve,Bryan, Gina, David, Lissy, Kyle, Micah, Shawn and Issac (Lauri is taking the picture)

Shawn, Lauri, and Bryan

Bryan, David, Eve, and Lissy out side the visitors center.

Issac and Micah checking out some of the exibits in the visitors center.

David was excited to have Issac and Micah in the back seat of the Tahoe with him.

Issac and Micah excited to be ridding with us in our Tahoe.

David and Bryan in our tent.

David and Gina getting ready to leave for the morning adventure.

Gideon, Scott , and Amanda.

Look at Amanda's awesome birthday glasses and earrings. I had to tease her because we are out camping and she put on those stilish earrings and stilish glasses. They look great. There is nothing like being in the great out of doors and looking good while you do it.

Friday August 29th, 2008- After Bryan got off work at 12:00pm we packed up our vehicle and left for Craters of the Moon National Monument in Eastern Idaho. On our way out of town we got stuck in some bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway. I guess there was a grass fier in the center median of the freeway that was in the process of being put out. Once we got past the grass fier we thought we would get back up to the speed limit but we did not. About a mile up the rode from the fier a car accident had happend. The free way was down to one lane. Our 3 1/2 hour trip to Craters of the moon became about 5 hours. Thankfully David did pretty well with the long delay. When we arrive at our reserved camp site we were really happy with how well kept the site was. David, Bryan and I were also very happy to get out the vehicle and run around. While Bryan and I set up camp, we let David wonder around in the dirt. As you can tell he had a blast suking on rocks and eating dirt. We were able to get our tent set up and stuff un-packed pretty fast becase David was so content to play in the dirt near by. It was great. Thank goodness for running water and wet wipes to get him some what clean-up after wards. Scott and Amanda and there 7 children arrived around 10:15pm. We helped then un-pack there things and get there tent set up. We were glad they had made it and that there drive went pretty well. We are all excited to be out here enjoying the beautiful out of doors and the gorgeous aray of stars.

Daddy and David getting ready to unload the Tahoe at our camp site.

Bryan is un-loading the boxes of wood on our nifty lougage rack.

David sure enjoyed playing around at the camp site. He had a piece of pizza left over from dinner that tasted great after it was covered in dirt.

I was really impressed with Bryan's pack job in our Tahoe. Look at all the stuff we were able to fit. We did buy a little lougage thing that fits on the back of the taho in our hitch. It allowed us tobring the wood for our campfires. All the stuff on the tables was packed neatly into our Tahoe. Impressive hu.

Thursday August 28th, 2008- Today is My Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom. Amanda and I met at the YMCA and played an 1 1/2 of racqetball. We had a blast. Scott had a canciled appiontment and stopped by to watched for a little while. He also held Gideon for us so we could play one last game of racketball. (We missed having Mom there with us but she was out to breakfast with my Dad.) My my Mom, Amanda, Eliza, Thomas, Gideon, David and I got togeter for lunch at Costa Veda and had a great lunch. As you can see David enjoyed the beans. After lunch Amanda took us over to a frozen Yogurt place and we had some great dessert.

David eating the frozen yougert.

David, Amanda, Thomas, Mom, and Eliza (Gideon is asleep in his carseat on the floor.)