Cabin Fun!

Last weekend Adam and I went to the Freeman grandparent's cabin. My family (sans Jacob, Aliese, and Darrin) attended the festivities as well as Patti's crew, Liz and Lad, and the Grandparents. It was so so so much fun. I can never get enough of the cabiny goodness.

Eric and Patti brought their four-wheeler and borrowed 2 dirt-bikes/motorcycles from a friend. We had so much fun on them! We all got so muddy from four-wheeling. Adam and Eric rode the dirt-bikes (because they actually know how to) but I got a short little sampling of the fun. I rode (and fell from) a dirt bike for the very first time! The third time I fell was really near that muddy road below. When I looked up, there was a couple on a four-wheeler there. Turns out they are from my parent's ward and they witness my crash. Splendid.
We (Patti, Lad, Liz, and I) got extremely filthy. Hayden and Caleb did too...but not quite to this extent. We all had muddy raccoon eyes. I didn't realize how muddy my shirt got until I saw how muddy my undershirt got. After a bleaching and a washing it is still muddy. At least it went to a good cause!

We were too filthy to go inside and use the shower...so we all jumped in the river to clean off. It was SO COLD! Caleb didn't so much jump...he was flung. Patti and I jumped in the same pose (not planned), perhaps we should start a river synchronized swimming group.

We had so much fun at the cabin! I just love it there. I can't wait to go back. Even though Adam and I were both thoroughly battered (by hips are bruised and my back hurts...from falling; Adam broke his big toe from dirt biking through boulders), it was some of the funnest fun ever!

Howard Family Camping Trip!

Last weekend, we went to my grandparents cabin (more to come on that...maybe tomorrow) and did some living room updating (more to come on that too...much more but much later). But the weekend before that, we went camping with Adam's family (his mom's side) in Nephi Canyon.

All the kids came in shifts. It was too bad we couldn't all be there together at the same time but luckily Adam and I got to camp with everyone at some point. The first night, Katie, Lyv, and Max all thought they wanted to sleep with Aunt Jen. A nice idea in theory. Max only lingered a few minutes. Katie and Lyv were on either side of me all night long. I love my nieces but I also love my sleep...they slept with their parents the next night.

On Saturday, AK decided to go on a lonely death march. I am opposed to lonely hiking. He likes it though. He trekked up Mount Nebo all alone. There are some glorious views (360) from the tippety top...I'm still pretty glad I didn't go though. Instead, I caught some fish!

We also got some 4 wheeling time in and tons of fun family time. Katie and Lyv were SO filthy. I only got a pic of Katie for some reason but Lyv was equally dirty. Poor baby Max took a real beating. Apparently camping can be hard on a baby. He fell many times resulting in a bruised/bloodied nose and some other bumps and bruises. At one point, Lyv had his leash (the tail of the monkey harness he was wearing...I used to be against them but they are so so handy when camping with a baby...and he looked stinking adorably giving his little stuffed monkey a piggy back)...anyhow, Lyv had the leash and baby Max started running. Lyv's hyper competitive side came out and she very quickly outran baby Max...pulling little Max onto his face and dragging him across the asphalt for a few feet. If you look closely at the picture his right eye/face is pretty battered. I couldn't get him to not look directly at the camera to get a great picture...he sure is cute, isn't he?

We had a rocking time. I love camping and I love family time. It was swell. More on cabiny family goodness later!

Stair Couch Survey

Our friends Mike and Amy came over with their sweet little baby, Emma (what I should have done was taken a picture of them...but I didn't think to until they left). They live in CA so we don't see much of them. Baby Emma is quite the walker and she enjoyed wandering around our house. We decided to move a third of our sectional in front of the stairs leading to the basement so she wouldn't wander herself into a spill.

After they left, Adam posed an interesting question. How long will our couch (that third of it, anyway) stay there? Most people would probably move it right back once there was no more baby around to be threatened by treacherous stairs. We aren't most people. AK thought I ought to blog about it and pose the question publicly. So you tell me, how long with that portion of our couch stay there before we decide to move it back (yes, I'm serious)?