Mommy/Daughter Day and More Camping!!!

OK, before I start my post I just have to say in honor of football season starting in one week, I changed my blog to support the Utah Utes! Call me crazy but I think Jake is rubbing off on me a tiny bit :) My husband will be officially absent from my life next Thursday as he flies off to "The Big House" to watch the Utes play Michigan in the first game of the season!

Anyway, my friend Lynette made this for me and it will display itself proudly in my kitchen until around January 1st, 2009, when I get my husband back! I'm serious! I won't see him! At all! Some of you wives know what I'm talking about :)

Anyway, on to my post...Lydia and I were bored all day on Wednesday, so I thought we should do something fun together on Thursday. So we packed up a lunch and headed to the zoo for the day.
Lydia loves it more and more every year because she actually knows the animal names. Although she did get confused every now and then and called the tiger a cow and the rhino an elephant. But I have to give her credit...all she ever sees of animals are the animated pictures in her reading books. I guess it's quite different when they're real and moving around!
This gorilla put this potato sack on his head and kept it there the whole time and Lyd's kept saying, "Hot, hot". I guess she thought that he wanted shade due to the sun beating down on him...maybe so!











And Lyd's loved the train the most of all, smiling the whole ride. What cutie!
Thanks for a fun day together Lydia. I love you so much!
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Then on Friday, we were off on another camping trip. This time, just our own little family. We went up into the Uintas again and stayed at the Lodgepole campground.
Here's the area...gorgeous right?!
Our campsite...


Thanks Todd and Heather for letting us barrow your tent. We bought one when we got married but our family has doubled in size since then and we couldn't fit.







I loved this HUGE tree that shaded our whole campsite.

Oh how I love that little girl :)

We had such a fun time. We did absolutely nothing...just sat around, talked and played.
One of my favorite parts about camping is the campfire. I think they are so beautiful and so mesmerizing.

And of course I only go camping for the s'mores. Here's the best one Jake has ever eaten. At least that what he said.

After we put Lyd's to bed, Jake and I stayed up and talked for hours. We had a really good time and of course some great conversation.
Then we decided to go to bed. After about an hour of lying in the tent in our cozy sleeping bags on the HARD ground I heard something...a crunching noise, right outside our tent.
Earlier that day larry's dog food spilled all over the ground and I picked up most of it but some pieces were left behind.
Well, some creature in the middle of the night decided to snack on it. It was a loud crunching noise too...all I'm saying is that it wasn't some chipmunk or squirrel. I want to say it was a big bear (that would be a great story, right?) but I couldn't hear it moving, only crunching away on what I'm sure is delicious Science Diet "Sensitive Stomach" dog food! It was too dark to look outside to see what creature was lurking before us so I can only assume it was a raccoon or something of that nature! But I will admit, I was scared for a moment or two!

In the morn, we just hung out and let Lyd's play around in the woods. And then there was our wannabe hunting dog trying to track down a little chipmunk that was taunting him :)

After we had been up for a while, a deer wandered on through our campsite. It was fun to see some wildlife on our trip. I bet you anything you won't be able to find it in this picture. But I promise you it's there if you look real hard!

Too much excitement for this little one. She slept the whole way home!

Thanks honey for a fun time. I LOVE camping and I hope we make a habit of it :)