Willow Flats Camping Trip

For our last summer hurrah, Brian took us all up to Willow Flats, Idaho (just past Logan, UT) to camp where he grew up going for Duncan Family Reunions.  It was beautiful!--we stayed Thursday and Friday night, had a sweet visit from his parents Friday morning, later hiked to the Willow Springs, enjoyed lots of good food, lots of dirt and exploring, a mild rain Saturday morning, and just relaxing together.  We took the first half of the week just getting all of the food prepared and frozen (jambalaya and cornbread, tinfoil stew dinners, pancakes, trail mix, apple cobbler, s'mores, eggs, snacks, juice, etc.)--then cleaning and packing, and probably not really enjoying the last week of summer like we would've liked to.  Around that, I helped put together our Activity Days "Daddy Daughter Carnival" w/  3-legged races, a frozen T-shirt race, and hot dogs and cotton candy.  Emily and Brian got to come to that one too, even though she's not quite in our group yet.  We had 9/10 girls there, and a really fun time!

Brian took off early Thursday, and the drive through Logan was beautiful.  We felt lucky to find a campsite at all, since the manager there said they'd been totally full every weekend of the summer by Wednesdays! After exploring the campground for future ideas, we still thought our site was the best!

Lucy had fun talking to Grandma while Grandpa led the other children on a treasure hike to some homemade cookies he had brought!!

Since Dad was recovering from his back going out, we waited until they had to get going before we hiked up to the springs

We forgot the dutch oven (and still survived--making cobbler in a makeshift tinfoil container, and making a sort of corn pone instead of corn bread), and twice had coolers fall out of the back of the van spilling the contents, but aside from a few dirty strawberries and watermelon, our meals weren't ruined, and it was just nice to relax together WITHOUT distraction--not even a clock to make it feel like we were behind any schedule.  Even waking up to rain, the sun dried things out fast enough Saturday morning, that it didn't do more than attract a few mosquitoes.  The children loved "skiing down the dirt hill of our campsite, Lucy LOVED just sitting and playing in the dirt, we visited w/ some of our "camping" neighbors, watched sunsets and stars, and wore ourselves out doing very little.  We got back in time for Brian and Maddie to make it to their "Miraculous Super Activity"/Youth Conference, where they went to see the movie Seventeen Miracles, and hear a few devotionals on miracles, while we unpacked and cleaned up before CRASHING in bed at home.  After a tired Sunday, ending w/ blessings from Dad for all of the children, everyone got off to great starts at school (we're even this year:  2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th)
--and Lucy and Anne even survived my aerobics class, which means I get to keep going after all!