our #1 {& only} summer camping trip

In the middle of August, we went on our longest camping trip ever, and it ended up being the only camping excursion we had this summer. Here's some explanation as to why it turned out that way...

At the beginning of June, I went to Utah with the boys for my niece's baptism. While there, I attended church on Sunday with my parents. That Sunday was testimony meeting, and I had the impression to share my testimony with the congregation. I had no intention of doing so, and I had no idea what I was going to say. I was the last speaker to get up before the meeting ended. I spoke about how I live in Salmon now and teach music at the elementary school. I told how I love to come home to my parent's ward and see ward members that I knew growing up serving in different capacities now, and how change is good and how wonderful the organization of the church is. I talked about the atonement of Jesus Christ, and how it applies and works for all of us, no matter what stage we are in life and my appreciation and love for my Savior for this gift he's given all of us. A week later, I received a phone call from a woman in my parent's ward that I'd never met. She told me her daughter was moving to Salmon the coming week to work full-time at the grocery store for the summer. The woman told me how she works as a cook at a scout camp near Salmon during the summer time as well, and happened to find a job for her daughter with the local grocery store as she was placing a food order with them. She said her daughter needed a place to stay, and when I bore my testimony at church and mentioned that I was from Salmon, she thought perhaps it was an answer to her prayers. I told her that I would ask around at church and see if anyone was interested, but if nothing else came up, I said that her daughter could live in our camp trailer for the summer. The woman also knew some other people in Salmon who said they would ask at their church, too. 3 days before her daugher was scheduled to work, she still had not received any offers for her daughter to stay with anyone, so she called me back and asked if it would be okay if her daughter lived in our trailer. I agreed to it, and said she could live there for the next two months. When her daughter came up, she said that she would be working until the middle of August. I told her we had a camping trip planned for the middle of August, and that she could stay here until then. And she did. I found another family in the ward that she could stay with the final week of her employment here because we needed to use the trailer for our scheduled camping trip. We usually go camping multiple times each summer, and it was difficult for me throughout the summer knowing that we couldn't until August. So when we were finaly able to go, we stayed longer to help make up the difference.

On Friday, August 10, we went to the ward campout north of Gibbonsville at Twin Creeks Campground. We had such a great time! It was the first time our ward has done this, and I hope they do it again! We ate dinner, played team olympic games, and told stories around the campfire. The next morning, we ate breakfast and the boys played with their friends until it was time to pack up and go.

 

On Saturday, we drove the trailer up the pass and over into Montana. We headed for Reservoir Lake, a spot we'd never been to before. The drive took a few hours, and we stopped at the Ghost Town of Bannock as a welcome break to get out of the car and walk around. It was such a beautiful day, and a peaceful stop. We looked through the old buildings and read historical information. I truly enjoyed it!

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at Reservoir Lake that evening and set up camp. That night we went fishing, ate dinner, roasted marshmallows & starbursts. On Sunday, we floated the lake and went fishing again that morning. In the afternoon, we took 4-wheeler rides. Throughout the day, the boys rode bikes, we played card games and read books, ate junk food, and relaxed. And I loved every minute of it. It was beautiful weather and a lot of people left the campground on Sunday morning, so it was very quiet and serene.

 

 

 

 

 

Ammon worked on making an outdoor bed the whole time we were there. He cut dead branches from nearby trees with a hatchet, and hacked off the limbs from them, and formed a makeshift perimeter around the bed. He leveled the ground and removed all the debris from inside the perimeter, then placed pine boughs as bedding. Then he put down a pad and sleeping bag, and put an umbrella on ropes that were strung between the trees that were next to the bed. He actually slept in it on Sunday night. The other boys wanted to sleep outside, too, so they helped pitch a tent and they put all their sleeping bags in it. It was the first time that we've gone camping that Josh & I had the trailer to ourselves for the night!

(Ammon asleep in his sleeping bag and makeshift outdoor bed on Monday morning)

(Josh checking in on the boys on Monday morning...

...they were all wrapped up warmly inside their sleeping bags!)

On Monday morning, we floated the lake one more time and fished again, but we never caught a single fish while we were there. Then we packed up camp and headed home. The drive was a couple hours' long again, and when we drove over the mountain and into the Lemhi Valley, it was filled with such extreme smoke from the local forest fires, that I just wanted to go back to our mini-vacation camping spot! It was the best camping trip we'd had for a long time! It was definitely worth the wait!

Williams Lake

We live about 10 miles away from Williams Lake, but for some reason we only ever seem to make it there about once a year. Sometimes I wish we had a paddle boat, because I know we'd spend more time on the nearby lake if we did! We spent one afternoon in August leisuring on the lake with our small inflatable raft and our tubes.

 

It's a beautiful and serene lake. You can tell in this photo that the smoke had already started to envelop the Salmon area back in August.

The small boat was barely big enough for the two of them!

Jonah and Micah stayed pretty close to the dock in their tubes.

Kanyon didn't want to get wet, so he sat by me on the dock for most of the time.

I love this photo of Josh!

I made the twins each jump off the dock! It was very cold water, and they weren't happy about it.

The lifejackets they used are older, and it was hilarious to see the boys after they jumped in the water, because the life vests went over their heads, and it made it even more difficult for them to swim than if they weren't wearing them--but they insisted on wearing them.

Kanyon finally agreed to let Josh take him out on the lake before we left.

It was another perfect summer afternoon: hanging out with our family and enjoying the great outdoors!

the good, the bad, and the ugly

Ammon was going to go to week-long scout camp at Camp Bradley near Stanley, Idaho from Monday July 30 to Saturday August 4. He was so excited to go! It would've been the first time he'd gone, now that he's 12, and he was looking forward to going with some of his best friends from another ward in Salmon, too. He packed his scout backpack and was all ready to go early on Monday morning. On Sunday night, the night before he left, we got a phone call saying there'd been a fire that started near Camp Bradley, and that scout camp was cancelled. It was too late to switch to another boy scout camp, so the boys in our troop never got to go. Unfortunately, that fire that started 2 days before he was scheduled to leave has spread and is still burning. Ammon was SO disappointed. He laid around the house for those first 2 days watching the Olympics on TV.  The scoutmaster decided to take the boys in our ward on Tuesday night for an overnighter camp to Wallace Lake instead. Josh went with them, too. They had a good time, but it wasn't the same as what a week-long scout camp would've been. And although they worked on passing off requirements, if Ammon had gone to scout camp, he would've completed several requirements as well as several merit badges. We are hoping that it will work out for him to go next year.

 

On that Saturday, we decided to take Ammon floating down the Salmon River. We've been waiting for years for him to be old enough to take. And since his schedule changed, and we had nothing planned for that afternoon, it worked out really well! He was so happy to go with us, too! We floated from the 11-mile access to the Shoup Bridge, which is a 5-mile stretch of the river. We used innertubes, and it took us about 2 hours. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon!   

When we got home after floating, I asked the boys how things went while we were gone. Micah said "Good. Jonah got stung by a bee." Jonah looked like this:

There are some beehives in the field above our house, and he'd been walking outside in the field with Kanyon and got stung by a bee on his left eyelid. He pulled the stinger out himself while we were gone. We got home about an hour after it had happened, and the swelling was already progressing. I gave him some Benadryl, and rubbed Benadryl cream on his eye several times that evening, and gave him a second dose of oral Benadryl before bedtime. The next morning was Sunday, and I let him stay home from church so that he didn't have to be embarrassed about how his eye looked. I rubbed more cream on it and gave him another oral dosage before we left. And when we got home from church, this is how he looked:

He'd fallen asleep while we were gone, and when we came home, he woke up. His eye looked much worse, and he was acting very strange: he wasn't speaking very coherently and he tripped in the bathroom and laid down in the tub for a while. I decided I needed to take him to the E.R. Josh is allergic to bee stings, and now I knew that Jonah was, too. I convinced Jonah to go because I told him they would just give him medicine that would make the swelling stop, and then he would feel better. We were there for about an hour, and they gave Jonah an oral dose of epinephrine (he was so glad they didn't use the Epi-Pen shot), and put him on some antibiotics. This is what he looked like after we got home from the hospital:

It took several hours before the swelling finally went down, and his eye didn't appear fully normal for 3 more days! He was a good sport about it all, and he was so glad when he finally looked like himself again instead of Quasimoto!

shwetted the bed

Perhaps you may not know this about me, but I was a bed-wetter until I was 7 years old.

I remember once going to my best friend's sleepover birthday party when I was in 2nd grade, and I had to take a diaper with me. I was so embarrassed. Before bed, I pulled it out of my overnight bag, hid it under my shirt, went to the bathroom and put it on secretly. Then when I woke up the next morning, I woke up early, tip-toed back into the bathroom, and took it off before anybody could find out. Of course, my best friend's mom knew about it, but I didn't want all the other 7-year-old girls to know, too. It wasn't until after that party that I finally stopped peeing the bed.

I felt so lucky that Ammon didn't have that same problem after he was potty-trained, and then when the twins had no problems with it either, I was so grateful. Apparently, all the issues with potty-training and bed-wetting were being saved up for Kanyon.

 

Kanyon has all the same kinds of issues that I did when I was a child:

--saving up bowel movements in his tummy until they are so huge that it hurts and he doesn't want to go to the toilet, so sometimes he prairie-dogs them in his underwear. And when he does finally use the toilet, he usually ends up clogging it.

--being so busy playing that he doesn't want to take the time to use the toilet, so he pees his pants instead, and then he goes and changes his clothes so that nobody (he thinks) will notice. And then I do notice, and make him tell me where he was at when he did it, and he has to scrub the floor.

--wetting the bed. almost every. single. night.

In the beginning, he would wake up in the morning and say he 1. pee-peed, 2. sweated, or 3. did nothing.  This is what the terms meant: "pee-peed"--that he was soaking wet with urine, "shweated"--that he dibbled a little bit but he wasn't too wet, "did nothing"--basically that.

Now whenever he wakes up, he says only one of two things: that he "shweated" (how he pronounces it)" or "did nothing". "Shweated" now means both dibbling or peeing the bed!

Yesterday morning I said to him, "Kanyon, you are soaking wet! You didn't sweated! You peed the bed!"

He said "Look mom--there's no pee running down my legs. So I didn't pee-pee, I shweated!". Totally makes sense, right?! Silly boy...

Eat More Chikin

I had a chicken-eating-craze in August. In just the first week of the month, we ate chicken for dinner 4 nights in a row! It wasn't planned that way...but one evening I was hungry and I was in the grocery store (not a good combination, right?!). The rotisserie chickens were on sale for $5 each, so I bought 2. Also, the 9 pc. box of fried chicken was on sale for $7, so I bought that for dinner that night. I split apart the rotisserie chickens to have different chicken dinners the next 3 nights (I LOVED that the chickens were already cooked!!). One night we had Ranch Chicken Bites, another night we had Poppy Seed Chicken, and the other night I tried a new recipe for Chicken Pot Pie.

I found the recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out! It was much easier to make than I thought, and I will definitely be making it again. But since our freezer usually has more beef in it than chicken (since we live on a ranch that raises beef), I think I will alter the recipe in the future to make Beef Pot Pie using cut-up steaks and beef boullion, instead.

Later in the month, I tried another new chicken recipe that I found on The Pioneer Woman's website called Chicken Spaghetti. It looked super delicious, and she had step-by-step instructions on how to make it, which is perfect for me (Josh teases me because I cannot make any food without a recipe or instructions in front of me).

It wasn't as delicious as I had anticipated, but the boys and Josh really liked it, so I think I will put the recipe in my "Keep" pile. Except next time, I'm going to add more chicken to it, and use some Mexican flavored shredded cheese for some extra flavor.

My boys have figured out that one of my goals for this year is trying one new recipe a month. Whenever we sit down to eat and they see what's for dinner, if it's something they don't recognize, they will ask "Is this a new recipe?" or "Is this your new recipe for this month?".  And they're getting better at trying the new foods without complaining, too!

Oh, and btw, my mom knitted the hot pads that are seen in both photos!

Summer 2012 Top Ten

Here's the completed list:

1. Grow a garden
We grew potatoes, corn, onions, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, and corn. And we've been eating so well lately with all the produce from this year's garden!

 

 

2. Go camping somewhere new
For my birthday, we went camping at Reservoir Lake in Montana. We were gone camping for 3 nights--our longest camping trip yet. We had a wonderful time! (more to come about that in another post)

3. Celebrate the 4th of July with the Tolmans
We had a fabulous time going to the parade, having our own fireworks show, performing in a family talent show, and celebrating July 4th and Ed & Kathy's 40th wedding anniversary with family.

4. Host the BH Tolman family reunion
This was one of my favorite BH Tolman reunions yet! We had such a great time in our backyard with extended family members!

5. Take the boys to swimming lessons
This was the first year that all 4 boys were enrolled simultaneously, and they all had a positive learning experience! They did so well and are much better swimmers now!

6. Watch Ammon's golf tournaments
Ammon had 4 9-hole golf tournaments in Eastern Idaho this summer: Rexburg, American Falls, Teton, and Aberdeen. He got 4th place twice & 5th place twice. Each year, he steadily improves!

7. See Jonah, Micah, and Kanyon play soccer
The boys had fun early in the summer playing soccer. They all scored goals for their team during the season, which was their favorite part (besides the snack, of course). And they got to attend a mini-camp directed by the BSU Soccer coaches, too. 

8. Vacation to Glacer National Park
This was one of my favorite activities we did together this summer. Glacier National Park is full of waterfalls and lakes, glaciers and mountains, and is absolutely breathtaking and worth the drive to go to.

9. Kala host her 15-year high school reunion
This was done the last week of August in Tremonton. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun as well. It was great to see old friends, and the newly remodeled high school, and talk to so many classmates.

10. Visit Grandpa Perkins in Spokane
We spent one night at Grandpa's house, and we looked at his old photo books, and listened to stories of his past, and were glad to see him still doing so well at the age of 95!!

Family Vacay Day 4

On Wednesday morning, July 25th (which was the fourth and final day of our vacation), we woke up, ate yogurt & poptarts for breakfast, and packed up the van for the last time. We left the cabin rental and drove about 20 miles to the west entrance of Glacier Park again. We went shopping for souvenirs at several shops & stores. We all got t-shirts, I got a magnet, the younger boys got pocket knives, and Ammon got a hat.

It was beautiful weather, unlike the day before; it was very warm and the water was calm, so we decided to rent a boat and take it for a ride out on Lake McDonald. We all put lifejackets on, and Josh got some training on how to run the boat from an employee. The rental cost $25 per hour, so we went riding in it for just one hour.

Josh and Ammon sat in the back of the boat, Jonah and Micah were in the middle, and Kanyon and I were at the front.

Kanyon absolutely loved it! He was so happy to be on the boat!

Jonah and Micah were very uneasy and nervous and didn't enjoy the first half of the ride until we finally turned around and started heading back.

Ammon wasn't too happy either because he wanted to just sit in the car and read a book, but we made him come along. Josh had him drive the boat for part of the time, which he did like.

Josh and I both enjoyed it--it was very peaceful and relaxing and we were surrounded by such beauty.

The small boat went about 15mph, and the lake was about 15 miles long...so we only made it about halfway across the lake before turning around and heading back to the shore to make it back in one hour. It's a long lake, and there weren't a lot of people on it at the time, so it was very serene!

 

After we got back to shore, another employee helped us get out of the boat and onto the dock. The boys got out, and then it was my turn. I have terrible balance problems when my feet aren't on ground. The first time I tried to stand up, I just flopped back down. I was holding a backpack with food and drinks in it, and I put the backpack on my right arm and tried to step up again onto the dock with my left knee. This was a huge mistake--my left knee has had problems for about 6 months and is painful to move. With all the weight on the left knee, my whole body collapsed, and I toppled on top of the man that was helping me. My other leg fell off the dock, and in between the boat and the water. My backpack pulled my weight to one side, where my butt and pants finally landed and slid towards the water. There was a brace to hold the boat right where I landed on the dock, and it ripped the butt of my pants open. I was so humiliated. My legs were already sore from the long hike the day before, and my left knee was in pain, and my pants were ripped open, and the guy that was helping me was so taken aback that he remained flat on the dock for a minute. Everyone who witnessed it was either laughing or shocked into silence. It was awful. The man kept asking me if I was alright, and I kept saying that I was, but I just wanted to get out of there quick. I finally got on both feet, walked back to the shore, paid the employee, and got in the car. I just wanted to go home.

We drove back to Kalispell, got gas and ate lunch in our car, then drove around Flathead Lake to Polson, down to Missoula, and finally home to Salmon. It was another long 6-hour drive. I was pretty quiet on the drive--rethinking about what had happened on the dock, and then I slept since I was up so much the night before with Kanyon. The boys were searching for more license plates on the drive to complete their game--they stayed busy with that, but never got all 50.

I was so happy to be home again. It had been a good vacation overall--the boys stayed pretty good in the car for being in it such long lengths each day, we had seen and done a lot of cool things, we had saved money by bringing our own food & sleeping bags, and we had a lot of fun together.

We want to go back to Glacier Park again next year and finish seeing the north east side--visiting Many Glacier and going into the Canadian Waterton part of it, too. And I'm already looking forward to it!

August 2012 on FB

Aug. 3: This was the 9th week of summer, & I can't believe August is here! Ammon's week-long scout camp was cancelled due to forest fires, so Josh went on an overnighter with him instead. I took the 3 younger boys to the swimming pool: Jonah & Micah jumped off the diving board in the deep end without help for the first time! and I stayed in the shallow end with Kanyon & got sunburned! We faithfully watched the Olympics each day, had 3 playdates with friends, ate chicken for dinner 4 days in a row, had ice cream every night, and consumed fresh produce from our garden.

Aug. 4: I've had a pinched nerve in my lower back for 3 days! ugh...so painful!

Aug. 10: Our 10th week of summer in a nutshell: Josh & I took Ammon floating down the Salmon River in tubes for his first time, I took Jonah to the ER for a bee sting on his eyelid that made his eye swell completely shut, Ammon attended NASA camp at the school, the younger 3 boys rode their scooters on a slopey sidewalk at a park, we went swimming as a family at the pool, we went to the lake one afternoon and laid on inflatables, I painted & completed a pumpkin project, and the girl that was living with us this summer moved out.

Aug. 13: it's snowing ashes, the sky is so smokey that we can't see the mountains that are 2 miles from our house, and the air feels like we're eating campfire smoke constantly. I don't like forest fire season in Salmon.

Aug. 14: Thank you, facebook friends, for all the birthday wishes! My hubby was so good to me today, and I really appreciated all of your kind remarks all day long as well!

Aug. 16: it's a miracle! The sky was filled with stars last night, and today there's blue skies shining on me! What a relief not to breathe in smoke or feel the depression hovering with the orange haze today!

Aug. 17: This was a great 11th week of summer: we went camping for 3 days & 3 nights, Josh made a delicious dinner for my 33rd birthday, a friend brought me a delectable chocolate cake, saw Magic Mike in the theater, got some awesome new sandals, spent 2 days cleaning out closets and updating wardrobe sizes for the boys, Ammon started XC practice, and I started working at school to prepare for what happens in 10 days!

Aug. 21: Leaving tomorrow for 5 days in Utah. I suddenly feel very unready for everything in the week ahead...taking a solo trip with the kids, hosting my class reunion, starting another school year.

Aug. 24: The 12th and final week of summer is over. just 4 days left until school begins. It's been a full week! I tubed down the Salmon River with friends, danced with Josh at an outdoor rock concert, cried while watching "We bought a zoo", played SkipBo with my boys, picked veggies from our garden & entered them in the fair, took Kanyon to the dentist, shopped for school supplies, watched the BE county fair parade, toured the Brigham City temple, and did final preparations to host my 15-year class reunion tonight!

Aug. 27: Here's to new beginnings...3 cheers for the first day of school tomorrow. It's coming whether I want it to or not, so I might as well tip my glass off to it!!!

Aug. 31: 50% of the people in this household now have the snuffles. I blame it on the smoke and poor air quality from the local fires that are burning out of control. I wish it would snow in the mountains so that we could have blue skies again!