Campaholics

We must be gluttons for punishment-- going camping again with all of us crammed into our camper!

Was it fun?  Um, not so much.

At least not for me... but I think everyone else had fun.

Here are the highlights...

we scored our great, great secluded spot next to the river.

And we got to go with our favorite friends:  Ron, Mark and Elly.

 We love the privacy and the location. 
The girls love the horse trough that works perfectly well as an outdoors gymnastic bar...

 Reese-- ever the fashion plate did not let us down.

 And you know the kids are having fun when they look like what their Aunt calls:  "Dirt Chickens".

We spent a lovely afternoon pruning our skin in the hot springs at Silver Creek Plunge.

 It felt like a giant bathtub... minus the bubbles. 

But we did get rid of a fine layer of dirt.

 On Sunday, Byron, Mark and Elly attended the church of the great outdoors with the girls.

I stayed back with Kean to "try" and get him to nap.

"Try" being the key word here... he for some reason developed a severe allergy to sleeping in the camper that weekend!

 He also fine-tuned his throwing abilities-- chucking his food like a pro pitcher.

But look at how adorable he is... sitting inside Elly's pop up camper.

The girls rode and rode and rode the 4 wheeler (in their swimsuits).

 Ron let the girls "help" him fish... they caught and released a handful of little guys.

 Love, love, love this picture of Marc charming Kean or Kean charming Marc.

You choose.

 And finally... this pic marks what has become a yearly tradition--- the monster whip cream mouths!

Okay, okay, we did all have fun...

Reesey just came down with a doozy of an earache.

She woke up all night, all weekend screaming in pain.

We came back and took her to Urgent Care

(let me give you a word advice... avoid, avoid, avoid Urgent Care on Labor Day... 'nuff said).

She had a double ear infection - an inner and outer in her right ear.

Finally, here it is on Friday and she if seems to be over the severe pain.

All I can say is between Kean and Reese,  I need a vacation to recover from our vacation.

Happy Campers

After last year's total loss, we finally got to go camping as a family! We had quite the motley crew, too. My parents, my brother, Doug's family, my cousin Jaylen and his family and my cousin, Brandon and his son. It was wonderful-- fabulous weather and a beautiful spot. Of course, Kean was so easy and so happy. My brother Doug is a master cook-- especially in the great outdoors. Byron makes a pretty darn cute junior chef.

My cousins, Jaylen and Brandon kept the kids entertained doing "Roller coaster" rides. That's Holland flying through the air.

The blur in this picture is Greer.

And here's flying squirrel-- Reese.

We had tons of four wheelers and motorcycles-- and each of us took lots of lonnnngggg, looonngg rides.

Next to our campsite, the girls sniffed out a pond with plenty of mud and freezing water. That didn't stop them, of course.

Here's my favorite picture of the trip-- Reesey's back side. She was not as hearty as the other children-- and only slightly ventured into the glacier-like water.

Okay, to be fair and balanced, here's her cute front side.

Byron took Kean on his very first (hopefully the first of many) rides on the "Cheeto"-- Holland named our four wheeler that many years ago-- don't ask me why.

I'm sure he loved it-- up until he fell asleep.

We also celebrated Byron's 47th birthday!!! Yikes, can you believe he's so old? Or that he married a woman, um, at least half his age? Cradle robber! He may be old-- but he's still a major hunk in my book.

I missed the candle shot-- but we had homemade cinnamon rolls to celebrate.

Hope everyone had a great Father's Day.

Montana... How we love thee!

Every September, we pull the kids out of school and trek on over to Montana to see Grandpa and Grandma Barker. We stopped halfway up near LoLo Pass to camp. It was in the 40's when we went hiking. Notice Zoe's breath fogging up the shot.




At the end of the trail, we found these amazing hot springs. Holland and Greer stripped down to their skivvies (yes we have blackmail photos for when they are dating) and pretended they were mermaids.

Here's the view we woke up to the first day on the farm. This is where Byron grew up-- and pictures don't do it justice.

Meet Grandpa Fred. He's a hair shy of 90 and we joke too onery to die. Byron spent a good chunk of our vacation working around the farm with his dad. The girls just run wild and love every minute.

And here are the girls with Grandma Kay. We had the best time. We visited Grandma at her store, went to lunch, met our favorite Montana cousins-- the Burtsfield's to play at a park (where Holland fell in a duck pond-- I'm not kidding), then went back to their house for a sumptious dinner and lots of playing.

Finally, here we are back on the farm with the star of the trip-- Sprocket. We rescued Sprocket last year on our trip to Glacier National Park. She was as skinny as a Greyhound and looked as if she had battled with a bobcat. We took the abandoned, starving, injured little pup to Grandpa's farm-- where he has fattened her up and renamed her Sweetie.

**Trip factoid: On our way to Montana this year we had another close encounter with a lost dog. We found a hunting dog wandering the highway up near the border. We took it to the nearest neighbor and called it's owner. This was only after Greer said and I quote "Holy Cow! Are we the royal dog catchers or what?"