Camping and Fun in the Sun

      Our first weekend back from San Diego we went camping.  We forgot to take our camera with us, so no cute pictures of Andrea playing with all the plants or absolutely loving the fire her dad made.  And sadly no pictures of her completely bundled up wearing two different pairs of pajamas and a coat all at the same time.  Plus I had her sleep in between Steve and I that night as well because I didn't want her getting sick from the cold.  She was perfectly fine.  I'm just an extremely over cautious first time mother.  So, I do have to tell a few stories about our camping trip.We got a new tent for a really good price from walmart.  It's a huge tent.  It's supposed to sleep 8 people, so this tent will last us for a while as long as we don't get any holes in it.  We got to our spot down in Santaquin meadows just before dark and set our tent up and got a fire going.  We ate our tinfoil dinners on our way to the camping spot because we ran out of time.  We ran out of time because just as we were going to leave several hours earlier, it rained like crazy, so we decided not to go camping and Steve kept working.  Then as time went on it cleared up and was extremely beautiful, so I called Steve and said, "Let's go, there's just enough day light left, so hurry home."  He hurried home, I grabbed the last minute things and we rushed out of the house.  That night was great.  We had smores and showed Andrea fire at night for the first time.  She loved it! We'll definitely have to watch her in the future, because she kept wanting to touch the fire.  After we got her to sleep Steve and I sat on top of the jeep and watched the stars with our binoculars.  They were incredible.  Honestly, it was so amazing to see the stars through the binoculars.  There were millions more starts that we couldn't see without the binoculars.  It was really fun.  We talked all about space and time and the speed of light. My husband is so incredibly smart.  I learn something from him every time we talk, I love it!  Finally we got to cold (I got too cold) so we went to sleep in our amazing sleeping bags.  It did rain a few different times on us that night.  And I did wake up a few times from the sound of a cow stampede heading right towards our tent. I failed to mention that we camped in the middle of a meadow that had a bunch of cows all along the outer edge.
         The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast which I will explain in a minute, but here is the really funny story.  While cooking breakfast we see an entire heard of cows being pushed by cow herders on horses straight towards our tent.  Thank goodness we had parked the jeep right in front of our tent, because the cows came straight towards the jeep and then made a V right around our camp and tent. We stood and watched right in the middle of them.  Andrea was LOVING it!  She got to see cows, horses, and dogs all at the same time and only a few feet away.  Everything was just fine until one of the cows tripped on our rain flap string and jumped back. That cow made the main cow herders horse go crazy and rare up a bunch of times. The rider was thrown off and the horse almost fell on top of him, but thank goodness he didn't.  They had to chase down the horse and calm him down.  And the rider cut his hand a little.  Plus they had to chase down some of the cows that were spooked as well.  I felt terrible. It was all because of us. The cow herder was so nice about it though. He just kept asking if Andrea was still happy and excited and loving the show.  Which she definitely was.  On their way passing back through he said, "Well, you won't need to go to the rodeo anymore.  You already had a show." Which we definitely did.  Our tent was alright. I just had to sew the strap back on to the rain flap when we got home, but no other harm was done.  Thank goodness.
       So, for breakfast we cooked some bacon in our dutch oven, then drained out some of the grease and cooked eggs and hashbrowns.  Then we cut up the bacon into smaller pieces and mixed it all together and added some cheese.  It is the BEST camping breakfast ever.  We loved it.  Steve has the exact amounts of each ingredient if any of you are interested in making it. :-) We went for a little hike after breakfast and then headed home because it got too hot and we had projects waiting for us at home.
      Once we got home we decided to wash the cars in our swimming suits so it would be like we were swimming, but yet still getting something important done.

This is what Andrea did while we washed cars.  We made our own little splash pool for Andrea out of a plastic tub.  We put just about 2 inches of water at the bottom and gave her a bunch of toys.  She loved it!  She played in there for at least an hour.  If you zoom in her face is really dirty. It's because I let her have a graham cracker just before I took this picture, but we were in the middle of washing cars, so I didn't have time to wash her face. A bad mom moment I know, but sometimes your kid can be dirty right?

Mom and dad showed up just as we were finishing the cars, so we (Steve) grilled up some hamburgers.  He made some amazing hamburgers and labeled each one with a toothpick and a flag.  You'll have to zoom in so you can see it.  They look just as good as they tasted. Good grilling honey!

Grandpa got to play with Andrea for a little bit before they headed for home.  He was bouncing her on his knee and she loved it.  You can tell from the little smile on her face.  Yes, this is her new thing smiling with her mouth shut.  It used to be smiling with her mouth all the way open, but it's the opposite for now. Still absolutely adorable though.

This is Andrea's new favorite thing to do.  She LOVES to play the piano by herself.  She's quite good at the pounding too. :-)  I'm hoping if she starts young then she really will love it and want to practice when she's older.