Camping at Dino Valley

Grammy, Aunt Jeni, Aunt Veda, Uncle Mike, Aunt Krystal
Anna, Mae, Leah, & Madison

Aunt Krystal listening to Mae read

happy camper!

baby Paige

Leah helping with omelets

Uncle Josh

Judah staying cool by sucking on ice cubes in his bath tub

trying to fry an egg on the road with Aunt Krystal

Mae making homemade donuts

cooling off in Grammy & Dingdaddy's trailer

Anna's 8th birthday celebration

scavenger hunt prizes - Dingdaddy was a great clue writer

smiling at Daddy's guitar playing

Leah with Uncle Mike

So, so many cute pictures. We thought we were crazy for even attempting this trip. Grammy made reservations for the first available weekend at Dinosaur Valley, and of course it so happened that we were setting records for June heat. Like 105 degrees every day! Who takes two kids & a 6 month old camping in 105 degree heat? After the girls knew about the trip & all of the family could make it there was no way we were going to cancel so we decided to make the best of it. The first step was to brake all the rules of "roughing it" by buying a window unit AC to make our tent cool enough to sleep in without having a heat stroke. My brother suggested it and we found other nutty people when we googled "air conditioned tent" who had tried it so we went for it. So glad we did! The first night was still too warm at first because it hadn't had time to cool down completely but it was nice by midnight. The second night was great. I'm sure we looked like total sissies with our AC unit, huge fan, and sound machine all running... but who cares - we slept!

My parents, Aunt Veda, Uncle Mike, & Aunt Krystal all stayed the weekend. We all told Krystal that if she could have any fun under these circumstances that she was an awesome first time camper! Uncle Josh, Aunt Jeni, & their girls also came out during the day (Madison spent the nights with us). It was great to have everyone together even though we were sweltering. The river was very, very low and kind of yucky in places but we did find a couple of spots that were deep enough for swimming to cool off. The kids also spent lots of time getting wet with the water hose, squirt guns, & water balloons. We kept Judah cool by letting him sit in cold water in his baby bathtub, taking naps in mom's air conditioned trailer, and sucking on ice cubes in his teether. The kids had a ball despite the heat - they never really complained about being hot because they were having too much fun. My parents & Aunt Veda had packed them lots of fun things to do... they had a scavenger hunt, watched a movie in the trailer, checked out the dino tracks, had a family birthday party for Anna, "helped" with the cooking, and even had a ball washing the dishes (we realized later when looking at pictures & video that they washed big knives - oops). Judah was a great first time camper. He loved being outside & was very entertained by Tom playing his guitar to him while he sat in his saucer. He napped well & slept all night in the tent.

We all had a great time & were so thankful to all the grown ups who put up with the horrible weather to give the kids a great memory.

video of the girls washing dishes, assembly line style, even the knives...