Camp-a-lamping

For the long weekend, we headed up to Bear Canyon Lake. Jason and I both had Friday off, which made departure much easier. We went with friend Dan and his girlfriend Chelsie. Her family was there for the first day and my friend Karen came for a night and a day so we never lacked good company. It was the first time I can remember camping without rain. Initially, I thought it was going to be awesome. I now realize I would rather have rain. The dirt up there is so fine and silty and was everywhere. Every little crease/crack in my hands had dirt embedded in it. We were all filthy and our stuff was filthy. Powdery dirt, or not, I still enjoyed my weekend, which was spent exploring... (I love exploring in nature. This time around I found a tree growing out of a rock, some lovely little wildflowers, an awesome plant and a log smothered in spider webs.) hiking...

eating...

napping...

One evening the boys were fishing and we needed to start the fire for dinner... no problem, the girls had it under control... Karen drug a dead tree into camp and I hit it with the ax (note: hit with ax, not cut with ax...)

relaxing... (some of my favorite ways included sitting at the edge of a cliff with Clara, reading and eating sunflower seeds at the lake, sitting in front of the fire and staring at this beautiful earth)

fishing... (The Barbie pole caught it's 3 fish limit both times it went fishing; Clara was thrilled. Within five minutes of Jason helping her cast for the first time, she says, "I think I feel one!" Of course I didn't even look, thinking it was her imagination. She said it again and Jason noticed it was not her imagination at all. She loved catching fish, feeling the fish and touching the worms. She was even fascinated watching the guys clean the fish. However, I think it was that experience that has left her asking me "Who killed this cow/pig/chicken/fish/etc." every time we eat meat.)

Mr. Cowboy had the biggest fish...

headed to the lake...

I love taking pictures in natural light. It makes it so much more likely that they'll turn out.

Clara and I blowing bubbles... I could never get a picture, but Clara blew some real bubbles.

Clara's perspective...

Of course I had too many pictures of Clara that couldn't be left out. She loves to camp and I love that she can just explore, learn about nature, get dirty and use her imagination. The weather was beautiful, but there were quite a few residual patches of snow that hadn't melted. We made a mini snowman, which Clara loved. She wanted to carry it with us on our hike, fortunately I talked her out of it.

Goodbye beautiful mountains. Until next time... (next time=next month, yeehaw!)