Camping Fun

We have spent the last 10 days camping at my parents' property on Cove Mountain and it has been so much fun.  It was so nice to just relax and not worry about anything except whether we were going to go fishing or four-wheeling that day.  We also loved being with family again and the kids loved hanging out with their cousins again.  There were so many fun things to do. I don't think the kids have ever spent this much time outside exploring and visiting.

They loved playing with Grandma on the teeter-totter (or merry-totter) Grandpa made.  Logan also liked playing the Bassett's outdoor bowling game.

We especially liked spending time with our cousins.

We just played all day long. We fished, explored, played on the teeter-totter to see  how many people it could fit and just had a good time.

Drew recently turned 12 and is old enough to receive the Aaronic Priesthood.  After getting the okay from their bishop, the Bassett's decided to do the priesthood ordination on the mountain.  We were able to all get together in my parent's trailer and do the ordination.  It was pretty cool and probably something Drew will always remember.

Along with camping, we did a whole lot of four-wheeling. 

Jack bought this little four-wheeler for $10 with his own money! (Now Lacie and Klint have put a little more money into it to get it running, but that is beside the point...)  Jack loved driving all of the kids around on his four-wheeler.  Emily, Colby, and Logan had a blast riding with him too.  They drove all over the camp until they ran out of gas and had to push it back.  Then once they had filled up, they were off again.

We also took a couple rides as a family.  Yes we can fit all 5 of us on our four-wheeler!  It is getting a little cramped though so we might be looking into getting another one someday.  On our ride we found this cool tepee/lean-to made out of sticks and pine boughs.  We explored the inside and all around it.

Also on our rides we drove passed this old abandoned cabin several times.  It looked like it could fall over any second so I wouldn't let the kids go inside.  Later though, we did go inside with Clay and Terral's families.  It was kind of creepy because I knew the house was going to fall on top of us and there was mouse poop everywhere so we knew we were going to get hantavirus.

Another fun ride we went on with the whole family was to the summit of the mountain to an overlook where we could see the entire Sevier Valley.  It was pretty cool.  The kids said they could see the whole world.

On this ride we rode with Clay and Terral's families as well as my parents.  Luckily Emily was able to ride with Terral so we had a little more room on our four-wheeler.  She liked riding with her favorite Aunt Terral.

While we were on top of the look out, the kids had a fun time exploring.  Here they are trying to catch grasshoppers:

While we were looking for grasshoppers and cacti and other things of nature, a buck came running across the mountain just a few yards away from us.  We were all kind of in shock to see a buck that close to us that all we could do was stand and stare.  So Cool!

No ride with the Morwood's is complete without a little bit of geocaching.  We found this geocache near the old broken down cabin.  Inside was a few good things so Chrislyn swapped her nice fishing bobber for a trinket and we wrote our names on the list inside the cache.

On another ride the next day, we rode to another look out point and saw another view of the valley.

This ride was a little longer than the day before.  Emily wanted to ride with Braden this time.

These kids love riding the four-wheeler.  In fact they would walk around the camp with their helmets hoping someone would take them for a ride.

So one crazy thing that happened on this ride was that Drew lost the wheel to his four-wheeler!

We were all driving down the trail in a line.  My parents, Jason, Braden, us, Drew, Terral, and then Clay and Shauna.  As we were driving down a hill, I looked to the side of us and there was a wheel rolling down the hill.  We yelled to Braden just as the wheel hit the back of his four-wheeler and came to a stop.  Then we saw Drew running down the hill chasing the tire!  Apparently, his back wheel came completely off, hub and everything including the brakes.  He had just enough time to veer the four-wheeler off to the side of the road and get it stopped in some sage brush and little trees.  Luckily he did not crash and was not hurt at all.  In fact he just jumped off his bike and went chasing the tire.  So somewhere along the trail he had lost all of the bolts as well as the pin that holds the tire on.  He went back a little way to try and find them but it was no use they were gone.  So now what do you do with a three wheeled four-wheeler with no brakes in the middle of no where?  You ride it down the hill to the nearest road that's what!

That's right, my dad and Clay rode that four-wheeler down the hill and along the trail for about a mile until we could get to the main road.  I was so hilarious to watch them ride that thing.  Because it was the back tire, Clay had to ride on the front of the bike to kind of balance it out so that the back wheel axle didn't drag as they rode.  Then my dad had to drive it while standing on the opposite side of the missing wheel to even the weight out a little more.  I can't believe they gimped that bike along the trail for so long.  It was so funny.  It seems every time we go riding with Terral something like this happens and we all end up with a funny story to tell afterward.  Thanks Terral for the comic relief!

They they rode the gimp four-wheeler down the trail to the road and then we left it there until Chad could come pick it up with the truck.  Then we continued on with our ride.

Because this was a longer ride, we packed a lunch and found a shady spot along the trail to have a picnic.  

As you can see we all enjoyed the break from the ride and lounged on our four-wheelers in the shade.  What a perfect spot for a picnic.  After relaxing, we finished our ride and headed back to camp.  We were all dusty and dirty but that is all part of the four-wheeling experience, right?

The wildlife on the mountain was amazing too.  This buck lived right by our campsite so we saw him almost everyday sometimes walking right through our camp with worries at all.

Along with a lot of deer, we also saw elk.  

Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures of the elk but we also saw a few big bull elks as well as these cow elk.  Even though we were camping, I needed to keep up with my marathon training so I would go running most mornings.  It was during these morning runs that I would see the most wildlife.  It was fun to run with the deer.  I even chased a few cows while Russell herded them away from me with the truck.  I think he had a little too much fun doing it.  One morning I was running down the road and I came around a corner and heard what sounded like a stampede through the trees.  Startled I looked over and saw two huge bull elk running through the trees away from me.  I was so surprised!  All I could really see was their heads and their massive antlers.  They were big.  I was glad they were running away from me and not toward me!

Russell decided Emily and Colby were old enough to learn to carve sticks.  After a quick lesson on knife safety, he handed each of them a pocket knife and they went to town carving.  They thought they were so big.  All they wanted to do during their down time was carve sticks.  We had to remind them a few times to carve away from themselves but for the most part they did a pretty good job.

One really fun thing about Grandpa and Grandma's property was the fun toys.  The kids really liked this rope swing.  This rope swing was one that I used to play on when I was a kid.  We used to hang this swing everywhere we camped and them take it down and store it in the trailer when we were done camping.  It has been a good stick and rope.

While we were there, the guys put together another swing set for the littler kids.  This was really a process combining repelling, ropes course, facing our fears of heights, and mechanics.  After the guys put their resources and minds together, Jason and Drew risked their lives and the lives of their future children to hang the chains for the swings.  

It was really quite a sight.  We all stood around to watch with our cameras and video cameras ready to get that hilarious shot that would win us $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos.  The boys just kept saying things like "I don't know if this is going to work!"  "It hurts! Let me down!"  "Don't look down!" "It's not the height I'm afraid of its the hitting the ground after I fall."  "We gotcha don't worry! Oops!"  "Knock it OFF!"  We were all laughing. 

Emily and Colby took a little swing on the lifting strap as well.  Finally the chains were hung and Jason and Drew got to be the first ones to try out the swing set.  It worked just fabulously! Good work, guys!

Logan was a little scared of the rope swing so he was really glad when Grandpa finished building the other swing set for the little kids:

Everyone had a great time on the swing set after it was finished.  Logan and Colby spent most of their time swinging the rest of our camping trip.  

Another fun toy was the "Merry-totter"  the tetter-totter that spun around like a merry-go-round.  Here the bigger kids are playing Spin-the-Bottle or Spin-the-Teeter-Totter to see if they can make the kid in the middle fall off by spinning the log.  It was probably not the safest game to play.  The person in the middle had to be quick because if they fell off they had to lay flat on the ground or roll away so that they wouldn't get smacked in the head by the spinning log.  Unfortunately, this Teeter-totter got broken before the end of the camping trip.  No one would tattle-tell on who broke it though...

We also played a lot of volleyball.  In fact one day we played all day long.  Of course we kind of made up our own rules to ensure that whatever team we were on won and the other team lost.  The games were so fun because everyone could get involved.  Some games we had 10 or more players on each team.

Along with playing games and four-wheeling, we did a lot of fishing too.  There were three lakes near our campsite.  In this picture above we are at Big Lake.  We didn't catch anything at this lake.  As soon as we left, Terral started catching fish like crazy though.  I guess we were bad luck.

One early morning Russell took the kids fishing at Annabelle Lake.  They didn't catch anything at Annabelle so they moved over to Deep Lake where they caught these whoppers. 

This might be the first fish Colby has caught.  He was really excited about it.

Russell had to go back to work for a couple of days during the time we were gone.  While he was away, we went fishing at Deep Lake again with the Bassett's.  Terral helped each of the kids catch a fish each time she got one on her pole.  They loved it.

They liked reeling in the fish and posing for a picture with it but they did not want to touch it at all.  While fishing, Logan loved collecting rocks into a huge pile and then throwing the rocks in the lake.  Colby liked keeping an eye on the stringer of fish we had already caught.  

In all the Bassett's caught more than a dozen trout.  Chad filleted them all and they had a fish fry when they got back to camp.  These guys are hard core fishermen sometimes staying out all night long catching fish.  We told them they were all crazy but they love it.

Toward the end of our vacation we drove over to Fish Lake.  We got an ice cream at the Lodge (our tradition) and then continued on to Mill Meadow.  On the way, we stopped at Zeb's Meadow for a picnic lunch.  Zeb's is right below Johnson Reservoir so Russell pulled the fishing poles out and tried his hand at stream fishing.  

Here is Grandpa teaching them how to properly fish the stream.  You have to stand back so the fish won't see your shadow and then slowly let you line float down the slower parts of the stream near the shore.

At Mill Meadow none of us really had much luck.  Then as we were reeling in the poles to get ready to go, Russell actually had a fish on his line and he didn't even know it!

Colby had a good time playing with this fish.  He even found this cup to put the fish in to show everyone.  Poor fish...

Before leaving the lake, the kids wanted to fulfill one of their brag tag requirements and go for a ride in a boat.  They went for a ride in the Bassett's little row boat and loved every minute of it.

They took a little spin around the lake and through a tunnel.  In the tunnel they were able to see a bunch of birds' nests made out of mud.  In the nests they could see and hear baby birds chirping.  They thought that was just great.  Emily said it was like going in a mermaid tunnel with all the birds singing around them.

No camping trip would be complete without a campfire and S'Mores!

S'Mores are my favorite!  Russell cooks the best marshmallows.  They are always perfect.  Tyrel is also becoming a great marshmallow cooker too.  He roasted most of the marshmallows for everyone.  Colby had fun roasting his own marshmallow for the first time too.

We all just had a great time being together around the fire.  We talked, roasted mallows, got really sticky, and tried to avoid the smoke.  It was just a fun time.

Some days we felt just like Logan in this picture...exhausted.  But it was a good exhaustion.  One from having too much fun! 

This camping trip was just what we needed to rest and relax from everything that has been going on.  It was nice to be with family again I had not realized how much we had missed everyone. I was glad we were able to stay as long as we did.  I think next year I want to stay even longer.  We will have to see what we can do.  I love camping!