Birthday Hike

Last week a girl we know invited our family to a breakfast she and her family was doing for a few families in the canyon on a Saturday morning. Brent said if we were going up there for breakfast we would go up the night before.  It was quite opportune, because we have wanted some where close to home.  By the time we got out of the car it hadn't even been 30 minutes.   

All the canyons close by are watershed, so you can't car camp.  Which is part of the reason I wanted to start backpacking as a family, so we could go on short Friday night trips. It was perfect where we found.

This is the hike we found.  We didn't plan ahead at all.

Hooray for four year olds who can take digital pictures.  Nan is here to prove, you can never look too fabulous to go camping.  She is high class in her halloween outfit.

J is such the hiking boy, and such a trooper.

We are slowly building up weight.  His pack is getting fuller, and he doesn't complain.  While Brent and I are getting better and decreasing our weight.  I didn't even feel like I was wearing a backpack, maybe a daypack.  On the way out I held Nan which is an extra 20 pounds, and didn't feel it at all.

Since it was September and we were in the mountains it chilled off quickly, and the kids were not happy.  Especially not J because he was wet from playing in the river.

But she did love her purple puffy coat, apparently she has missed the style this summer.

We put him in his jammies and I held them both, building up our body heat while Brent cooked our dinner.  Our second dinner we ate before we left no need to bring more weight.

In the morning Nan wanted to cuddle with her daddy, she loves to cuddle with him while we are camping.  Ha ha, she somethings crawls out of her sleeping bag at night and gets cold and throws a fit while I sleep and Brent shoves her in his bag. That night she didn't, she just cuddle in the morning.

Told you no rest

After lunch and stuff, we left to go camping.  My parents own some property, which is undeveloped, and my husband decided it was high time to go camping there, not to mention he invited his previous mentioned sister and family. This is what we saw as we drove in the Valley the back way. 

All growing up, I heard the plan was for my parents to retire up here.  For the past few years that seems like a long shot, I was definitely not encouraging them to.  But then again I hadn't seen the property in the summer.  Its 7 acres, or something, I don't know.  And its great, not to mention their neighbors have been very nice, there is a rope swing, and a fire pit.  Needless to say, now I'll totally be encouraging them with their original retirement plans.  I figure the first day my dad retires, or the day after my little brother starts Texas medical school as a instate student, they should put their house for sale and start building.  A small three bedroom, two bath house, one story house, with an unfinished basement.  My mom would love camping out in her backyard with her grandkids while they came to visit.  And my dad might only set up the tents then go back inside and sleep on his nice comfortable bed. Then my mom and her grandkids would spent all day playing in the brook in the backyard.
Heres the pictures of our no rest fun. There is a nice creek/stream/raging river (I assume) after a heavy year of snowpack melting in the spring.  Which meant there was tons and tons of nice smooth rocks to play with.

But right now, its a great creek, J had a blast finding all the different places to cross it.

In case you were confused on the temperament of my second child, here is a reminder.  Yes, it person she makes more noise than a picture conveys. She also wasn't happy in the middle of the night, and did this plenty.

Luckily her daddy is far more patient than I could expect with her.

Yea!, the cousins arrived.

We are minimalist campers, so normally we don't have a campfire, but hey its about community right?  Anyway, camping with cousins seems like the perfect time for a campfire, plus it was cold.  Luckily my husband has been a scout master, he had those twigs all ablaze and roaring within minutes. Plus he now has the beard to prove it.

Look to my surprise someone took a picture of me! Hooray I was there.

Breakfast the next morning,

Some more river fun, everyone but the moms and the infant waded in what I would assume would be freezing water.

Like I said, nice neighbors who built a rope swing for my parents.

So ok, who is with me, does this look like a great place to go visit grammy?  Can we convince grandpa to leave his pool?  Aren't you ready mom and dad? The question is before or after the mission?

Packing Lists for Backpacking

Ready for more backpacking stuff!  I'm afraid I'll lose my list for next year.

Per Person

My daughter was terrified from the thunder.

1 tee shirt
1 pair of pants
1 long john top and bottom
2 undies
2 pairs of socks
1 rain jacket
1 beanie
1 brimed hat
1 plastic $1 pancho
1 whistle
1 bowl
1 plastic spoon (they are lighter than metal)
(1 fleece jacket) (depending on the person, J and are always cold camping, while Brent is not)
(pair of light weight shoes)-- depending on how you role, a pair of light weight shoes to give your feet a rest when you aren't hiking like water socks or something. I brought crocs for my kids, but we might not bring them next time, because the kids don't have as much weight in their tennis shoes as we do. We never used the cros

Per Pack (this list is for two adults with large packs, and two small kids)
2 black trash bags
1 jumbo ziploc

1 flashlight (you want a light weight one)
1 emegerancy blanket
1 small tube of sun screen
1 small bug spray
1 lighter
2 sleeping abg
1 small towel
2 Nalgene bottles

Per group
1 stove
1 fishing pole (we need a lighter reel, my husband loves to fish and has a backpacking rod)
first aid kit and mole skin
toliet paper and shovel
tent
tarp
3 sleeping pads (we are all small so we share the three among us four)
tin foil
water purifier
tampons (one thing I read said women should always carry a few, even if not expecting to need them)
duct tape, just a little bit, so to save weight but to fix a broke pack or something
light point and shoot camera
tweezers/fingernail clippers
4 light toothbrush (like travel ones, with caps discarded)
toothpaste (or a little bit of baking powder to save weight, this past time we all used a half used small kids favored paste)
lip balm
parachute cord-- 50 ft (its lighter than rope)
Just for the record, my son wears pullups at night, and my daughter is in diapers.  We brought only two pullups for J, and few extra diapers, I think we came back with four.  Then a whole pile in the car.  When you start backpacking with kids, you want to be within a few miles of the car, with extra supplies in the car, just in case.  Kids are durable, and rubbery, but at the same time, easily traumatized.  

When it was all over, we drove to this waterfall also in the National Forest, but it was next to a parking lot, no need to hike.  See look, we survived, same day we hiked out.

Although it was almost problematic.  If we would have hiked anymore, I don't know if I would have survived at the waterfall.  You could follow the steep falls for awhile by walking down cement stairs. If I would have backpacked longer, I think I would have collapsed, I felt like I had marathon legs (you know how people who finish marathons can't use stairs for a few hours afterward.). Anyway, we had fun, and can't wait to do it again.
P.S. if you notice, none of us are wearing jeans. They are heavy and slow drying. Cargos are a definite plus.
We also brought no toys, other than thumb sucking blankets and a sippy cup.  Dirt, rocks, flowers, and grass are the best toys anyway.  Next time we won't bring a sippy cup, because she is outgrowing them.  But definitely useful for toddlers, or babies.

Thursday Night, Friday Morning Date Night

Last night my husband and I had signed up to go to the Temple.  So we found a babysitter, and left.  Then we came home and loaded everyone in the car along with a lot of our camping gear, and drove out west into the desert, to watch the Perseids Meteor Shower. Luckily our kids fell asleep in the car.  My husband set up the tent and sleeping bags, while I made sure the kids didn't start screaming.  Once we put our kids in their sleeping bags, I laid in there for a few minutes to make sure everything was ok. As lay next to them, still spiritually elated from the temple, I thought I'm the luckiest girl alive. Growing up I didn't want to be a mom, I didn't realize it would be more than just dirty diapers, jam hands, and crying.  I'm glad I found out that there is more than that to motherhood, and its much better than babysitting, but also much harder, and never goes away.  But I'm having so much fun in life right now, being a mom, a wife, a person, we just have so much fun together. I feel like 25 is a sweet spot, I feel so calm and relaxed who is I am, where I am in life, where I am in my relationships, especially my marriage.
But back to the Meteors, it was really cool, we saw the skinny sliver of the moon, set. and go away under the mountains.  So the sky was bright with stars.

  Its neat to be out in the middle of no where and see the different colors of the night sky.  We saw the cluster of stars, that I guess is the milky way. The edge of the milky way?  I don't quite understand astronomy.

 We saw plenty of shooting stars.  So naturally I thought of the hit song, Airplanes, "Let's pretend that airplanes in the night sky are shooting stars, I could really use a wish right now." Not to mention my husband took his camera to do some astro-photography but didn't get any pictures of shooting stars, but plenty of satellites and airplanes.

Back to the events at hand, we watched the stars and the meteors for about an hour, until my neck got tired, and  I was tired, so then I went to bed.  Then we woke up at four and watched some more shooting stars.  It was pretty cool, I really will admit it was awesome to see so many shooting stars. Then it got too light, most of the stars went away, and the photography was useless. So I convinced my husband to pack up and stuff our kids in the car.  We drove home and got at home at 6:30is-7ish, and then all went back to bed.  The kids and I until 10:30, but Brent had to get up earlier for working at home.  It was a lovely 17 hours.
As we drove away from the dusty flat ground covered in prickly weeds...

 I thought about when I was engaged and many people told me don't have babies right away, its so fun to be first married before your kids are born, you can do so much fun things, and you aren't tied down, you can go camping and other stuff all the time.  Now this is a lot of advice all mixed together in one run-on sentence, but the point is, I think they were crazy.  Good advice for some probably, but not the advice Brent and I heeded.  We had a baby right away, be even with that, we have a blast all the time, we don't feel tied down at all, we do some much, and have so much fun all the time. Its so easy with two kids-- built in best friends, and we just pop them in the car and go. They sleep on the way, and when we get there.

 Brent and I are having the time of our lives.

Look, its a planet.  Ten bucks to who can tell me which one.  Just kidding, I'm not going to pay you, but I don't know what planet it is.

Walking REI Ad

At some point in life we switched who we were. After almost two years of not being a scout master, apparently my husband has taken us on. And since then, we have become that type of family, that goes and wanders around REI in our spare time. We wander around looking at all the stuff we want. We don't buy it all but we buy plenty. We've become the type of family that is broke because we spend all our spare cash on camping gear. In our spare weekends we go camping.  We are just those people now.  In the last 6 months, we have bought a backpacking pack for my husband, a child-size backpack with a hydration bladder in it for my son.

Two children's sleeping bag.

A four person tent that is 6 lbs, so its doable for backpacking as a family. (Sort of, my husband wants something lighter.)

Oh and see that camp-stove also a new investment, but not REI brand like the rest of the products.  When we are camping I look around and feel like I'm in an REI commercial.

I have a love hate relationship with REI.  Really how much REI products do we need?  But their staff is well informed, their products are cheaper than others, quality and have good warranties, how could I say no?

Friday Night Camping

We have been dying to go camping since the last time we finish, especially after we got some REI Kindercones-- kids sleeping bags.  OH MY GOODNESS, we love them, they are great, if you have small kids and camp a lot, its a great purchase. (Although I'll be honest we didn't pay full price.) We had the chance so we hopped on a overnight trip.  We packed up assured we could find something within an hour of our house.  My husband had no success on the internet finding info, but surely there is something, there are mountains in our backyard.  NOTHING, literally nothing, we tried so many canyons, all no camping watershed zone.  Dumb population who needs to drink water.  Three hours later, we were tired, defeated, and hungry.  I was ready to go home, or call Brent's sister and crash in their basement.  But then we pulled into a small Podunk town, and low and behold we found an "Authentic" Mexican restaurant.  We left our hot dogs in the cooler and ate yummy yummy salsa.  My kids even ate their taquitos, its amazing how much they eat if you don't feed them for three hours. At this point, we continued heading north, my husband planned on calling my parents and figuring out where they're undeveloped property was.  I was still hoping for a campsite.  We took the road through the ski resort, it was eerily empty. Then came the road that was closed Dec 1. -June 1, a little while later saw a turn off, and low and behold through the thicket there was a firepit.  There wasn't a flat campsite, but who cared at this point we were in the wilderness, sort of. The previous users of the area apparently had just left, because they did not fully put out their fire, and left a wiener on a broken roaster.  The kids had a fun time poking the coals, so that was a plus, Brent and I aren't much of firepit campers, its so messy, and the smoke stinks.  So it was a fun experience for the kids.

 

Did I mention we were car camping, we are hoping to take the kids on a short backpacking trip this summer, but that night was car camping.  We think if we weren't car camping we could have found something closer to home.  Although that is not were we are planning to go backpacking, anyone want to join us on a easy slow 3-day backpacking trip in the Unitas in August?

Since we were car camping, we had Zingers (Hostess Snack). J thought it was really cool they were called zingers.

I was so tired, I think I fell asleep before the kids did. I was the second to last up too. It felt good to sleep almost soundly in the mountains, I did have a big lump of dirt under me. There is my fantastic husband taking down our REI tent that we can also use for backpacking.  And I am right not to like campfires, my daughter was covered head to toe in ash.

 The next morning we of course went hiking by a brook no less. It was really pretty up there, and completely undeveloped, minus the ski runs.

Want to hear more, my husband also blogged.

Never posted

Turns out I never posted any camping pictures.

Here is a our drive down.
A Tunnel, I loves tunnels, like seriously love. Even if they are short, the longer the better. Like seriously they put my heart a flutter.

Here is Dixie Forest, I thought it looked awesome and wanted to stop but my husband told me no time.

A rainbow, it rained on and off the whole time we were camping and we saw lots of rainbows.

Tah dah, almost there. Just another of hour of driving once we got in.

I love these pictures of my kids, and I loved them when they were being taken. You might be able to tell by my profile that I'm insanely happy.It was kind of cold outside and although I let my four year old get out without a coat, that seemed irresponsible to do with my baby. So I wrapped her in a blanket.Nothing like a headlock from your older sibling when you are still the baby. She looks so much like my dad's baby pictures in this shot I think, minus the headlock. My dad is the oldest so I doubt there was anyone to grab his head.

I love it, she looks like an Indian, I know racist sounding. But you know all those pictures of the Europeans infecting the Indians with blankets that what she looks like to me. Ahh, small pox.
Still continuing on our journey. I was pretty sure we were never going to make it to our campsite, that is why we couldn't stop in Dixie Forest.