Fall Break 2011

I have been so bad at blogging lately.  I really love to have the record, and I enjoy doing it - it's just that it takes so much time and I am so behind on everything else already.  So, I just decided that I would do a post and then slowly try and go back and update things.

Last week we were lucky enough to have Fall Break.  Before the economic crash we were spoiled and we used our Fall Break's to go on really amazing trips.  Those were the weeks that we took the family and went to Hawaii, New York, and Washington D.C.  We were able to get those trips in before Emily left home.  We haven't been able to do trips like that for a few years now.  Sometimes I kind of get bummed out about it.  But, it turns out that we had a great little vacation right here close to home!

We haven't been able to go camping much as a family lately.  We were all disappointed that there wasn't a ward campout this year - so, a few families decided to take this last chance before it gets to cold and go camping.  We went up to Bear Canyon Lake, which is only about 2 1/2 hours away.  We found a nice spot and set up camp on Thursday.  Taylor and Alex joined us later that night.

Just had to take a picture of our tents because they went in the trash when we got home.  Totally falling apart.  But they served us well for a lot of years. :)

We didn't have anyone to watch Murphy because so many people were out of town.  So, we took him and found out that he really isn't a "camping" kind of dog!  He was so funny.  He was so cold and scared all of the time.  We really babied him the whole time.  Wyndi Curtis lost a dog up there last year and so we were afraid to let him wander.  It ended up working out fine - I just don't know if we'd ever take him again!

On Friday, we hiked down to the lake and it was sooooo beautiful.  The hike (even though it was steep and hard for me) and the time spent at that beautiful place was good for my soul.  The younger kids had a blast finding crawdads.  Ryan caught a couple and added them to the community bucket.  They then hiked back up to one of the camps and cooked and ate them!  Ryan said they forgot to clean them out (like shrimp) so it kind of grossed him out.  But he had a great time!

 Me, Wyndi Curtis, Janna Hassell, Teresa Lee & Heather (Wyndi's sister)

!Got a crawdad

 Dad, Danny, Taylor and Murphy enjoying the view

 Alex & Ryan

 Paige Lee "walking on the water"!

The "fam" minus Emily :(  I will post a better one when I get one from my friends.  One where Taylor is actually looking at the camera!

 Danny, Paige, Alex, Taylor and Kirk Lee went on a hike around the lake

It is so beautiful that it takes my breath away!  I want to go back :)

We had a community dinner that night and it was a lot of fun.  I FROZE my tootsies off that night!  On Saturday, we took down camp and drove back home.  Camping is just so much better when you can spend two nights!  It is more worth all the work.  What a great little vacation!

I came across this camping "Father and Son's" picture and had to add it.  I LOVE it!  (Dad, Danny and Alex)

Ward Camp-Out #3

We had our 3rd Annual Gilbert 3rd Ward Camp-out this weekend.  It is such a fun little tradition that was started 3 years ago.  Everyones loves it and we get a huge turn-out.  We were disappointed though this year because Ryan missed the whole wee of school with the croup.  He still wasn't feeling well and had a really nasty cough - so we headed up with the boys for just the evening.  The weather was beautiful and our dinner was delicious!  Brad made green chili burros in the dutch oven.  We had a nice program and then we packed up our stuff and left minus Danny!  He wanted to stay really bad, so we left him a tent and some of the scouts slept in it with him.  Hopefully we will be able to stay the whole time next year . . . but who knows - that will be around the time Taylor will be done with his mission :)

Ryan taking it easy

Nice... Alex!

David, Danny, Ryan & Jake

3rd Ward Camps

This isn't a very good picture, but it's all I've got. Danny went on his very first Scout Camp up by Big Lake and had a great time. At the same time, Taylor and Alex went on a High Adventure with their age groups to California, and the girls in our ward had Girl's Camp at Camp LoMia - all at the same time!

Brad and I had the privilege to go up for Bishop's Night. This was our 3rd or 4th time. Brad spends a lot of time making up games and different things to do with the girls. They really love it when he come. I'm sad because this is the first year I didn't get a picture of Brad with all the girls, but this one is of him in action!

Ward Campout

We had a our first 3rd ward campout at Canyon Creek.  It was a huge success!  There were almost 20 people there.  We had a great time and everyone else seemed to also except for Collin Ward.  He broke his arm pretty badly.  This picture is taken at the fish hatchery.  It would be great if Emily were in it:(

Carl Bloomfield put up a zip line.  I couldn't believe Ryan wanted to do it.  These aren't very good pictures, but it is showing Ryan and Danny on the zip line.

Taylor and Alex wouldn't get up for breakfast and so Mike Ward made the tent fall down around them.  They still didn't get up.

Daredevils!

Campout Continued

We had a great time walking to the creek and just messing around together

Water Fun

Heaps of Patterson's Reunion

Ever since I was a little girl we have been going to the Heap Reunion.  It is held the first week of August up in the White Mountains near Green's Peak.  We decided this year to make it more of an Earl Patterson Family reunion this year.  I was really happy at how many of the family turned out.  We had a great time bonding and getting to know each other better.  My boys had a blast (but we missed Emily greatly)!  It was the first time in a long time that it didn't ever rain.  The boys rode Uncle Don's quad's, found horny toads, carved cool walking sticks (thanks to Uncle Larry), played horseshoes, ran down Green's Peak, chopped down trees and played with their cousins.  Thank you everyone for coming and thank you Ginna and family for all you did.  A special thank you to Mom for the wonderful memory book of Dad that she made.  I know it took a LOT of work.

 

Loaded up to go run down Green's Peak

See how many actually run!

Ryan and Tyler getting ready to run . . .

or should I say "slide" with JoAnn and Leslie!

They made it!

Don took us on the quads up by where we used to camp.  We found a tree that had the Grant's names carved in it and then it said + JoAnn.  You can't tell from the picture, but it was really high up.  The tree had grown a lot.