Camping in Colorado

In July we went camping near Woodland Park, CO - just west of Colorado Springs and within view of Pikes Peak. We stayed in a tent - even though Corinne was 7 months pregnant! But she managed to have a real fun time despite barely sleeping through the night due to heartburn and being generally uncomfortable.

It rained a lot during the fist few days of our stay. You can see in a few of the pictures that we are wearing raingear, and that we put big tarps up over our tents and gathering areas.

This patchwork of tarps was the chapel ceiling for our family Sunday service. It rained through most of the service. Each of the heads of families gave a short talk covering the subjects of faith, hope, and charity, with an eye single to the glory of God. It was a wonderful meeting and the Spirit was very strong. There's just something powerful about spiritual gatherings while camping.

I went and bought the biggest tarp available at Wal-Mart to cover our tent because it was leaking so badly. We just happened to have enough tarp left over to accomadate Megan's tent as well :)

We were going on a walk during light off-and-on rain showers when BB just gave up. She had walked enough! She was really sad when we took this picture, but it was so cute we couldn't resist.

This is Corinne and Megan on the same walk overlooking a big field with a stream running through it next to our campground. Further downstream there were about 7 beaver dams, and we actually saw a beaver swimming across the water.

Group Photo! BB was still mad and wouldn't get in the picture. But GG looks happy right in the middle of things!

We had to get creative to fill in the gaps between tarps when it rained.

The lumberjacks up in Colorado are ridiculously good looking.

This is us in front of Balancing Rock at Garden of the Gods.

Ready for our close-up Mr. Deville!

We had a lot of fun hiking around at Garden of the Gods.

Corinne and the girls found this little cave to climb in. GG was upset because she had just bumped her head on the cave ceiling.

I was just taking a nap in the forest when all of the little kids ganged up on me, rolled me around, and left me for dead. But I still had a positive attitude!

The girls have a 3 foot long pink princess fishing pole that they share. When we got to Lake Manitou I baited their hook first, cast the line into the water and gave the pole to BB with these inspiring words, "You just sit here and hold on to your pole, and nothing happens. That's fishing." Corinne was behind us watching, and before I could even bait my own hook she said, "Steve, I think she has a fish on her line." I checked,and sure enough, there was a trout on her line. I helped her reel it in. She thought that little trout was the coolest thing in the world! And she was the only person to catch a fish that whole day - using her 3 foot long pink princess fishing pole! (Author's note - this story became the basis for a spiritual thought that I gave in Ward Council, the lesson being that we should not sabotage ourselves with low expectations, or that we should "doubt not, but be believing" in Moroni's words - Mormon 9:27.)

A few days before our camping adventure ended, we all went to a local laundromat to replenish our supply of clean clothes. After more than 45 minutes of drying, our clothes were still damp, so we just took them back to camp and hung them on the various clothes lines that we had suspended across camp to support the rain tarps. Between the 4 families that were there we had easily over 100 items of clothing hanging out to dry. It was quite a sight. One of our neighbors in another camp site was caught taking pictures of us. When we asked her not to photograph us, she said that she had only done it because she thought we were homeless, and she had been collecting images for a book about poverty in the Obama years!

It was a very fun trip. Whenever people at work or in our ward ask us about it, they are amazed that our little family went camping for 8 days - a 3 year old, a 5 year old, and a pregnant woman! I have to admit, it was a lot of work. But it was fun, and well worth it for the memories we made.

In June we took a vacation to Utah to see our family there. It was great to see everybody again. It rained quite a few of the days we were there. The local news was calling Utah "Seattle South" because the rain had been so persistent for so long. But it did make everything very green. Utah may be a high desert, but it looked like a rainforest compared to AZ.

As has become tradition, we hiked the Lagoon Trail with all of the kids. It's a fun walk and it gets the kids nice and tired. They were able to see some of Lagoon's zoo animals. We ended up at Farmington pond where we were able to feed the ducks because Grandpa bought some crackers off of some kid who was there picnicking with his family.

We were able to go through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It is a really beautiful temple with a great view of the Salt Lake Valley. It is also really close to Lindsey and Shafer's new house, which we finally got to see in person. It is a really nice house with abundant and varied plantlife everywhere. It was a strong reminder that, as nice as AZ is, it is still the desert.

We visited BYU to see the art museum. They had a display of "I Spy" artwork that the kids had fun with. We also saw a lot of "trash" art, which the kids loved. These included giant sculptures made of black trash bags, balloons, and even duck sauce packets from a chinese restaurant. The hard part was preventing the kids from touching anything! It was also fun to show the kids their Dad's Alma Mater. We walked around the campus and showed them all of the buildings Dad used to go to class in. Then we ended up in the Wilkinson Center where we got them T-shirts and ice cream. Now they love BYU and are determined that it is the best school in the world and the only one they want to go to. They have invented a game called "BYU kids" which consists of running around yelling "BYU, BYU, BYU!" They have done this at the zoo, in stores, and all over the campground we visited a month later. They're even turning their unknowing AZ cousins into BYU fans.

We spent some time hanging out at Emily and Andrew's house. The kids went swimming in their pool and we all enjoyed cooking out and talking with everyone. We even watched a bunch of old home videos including Corinne's first visit to meet her future in-laws. We had made actual "movies" consisting of storylines, props, villains and heroes. It was incredibly silly, and I had actually forgotten that we had made them. But it was fun to see again.

We visited the Hogle Zoo and hiked around with the kids, looking at all of the animals. They loved the animals, but I think they had more fun at the playground right before we left.

Just before returning home to AZ we visited Grandma and Grandpa's in Bountiful. We sat out on the patio eating cake and talking. The girls were excited about a sparrow's nest made of mud that Grandma showed them. They were amazed that a bird could build a nest out of mud on the side of their Great Grandma's house. It was a great reminder to me of how exciting and new everything in the world is to these wonderful little kids.

Well, that was the trip. If you have more pictures or memories to add, send them to us or add a comment. Just remember to avoid using the kids' names or any email addresses or actual addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, credit card information, etc. ;) You get the drift. Thanks.