I'm so excited to write about this year's Cousin Camp. It was a lovely time and so I want preserve the memories.
First I feel like we need to preserve the memories of the schedule I made. I use a variation of this calendar for our weekly schedule so I just needed to adjust a few things.
Some of my favorite things on this schedule are the meals that are listed out. And the assignments for who was helping cook and who was helping prep each meal. I laminated this schedule and kept it near the food. It helped everyone stay organized. Derrick was especially appreciative of it. He read every word and kept careful track of the schedule along with me.
When I laminated the schedule I also laminated the Helping Groups to the back. We had three groups. Group 1 was Rocky, Veronica, Bridger, and Hazel. Group 2 was Asher, Derrick, Knoxx, and Eliza. Group 3 was Charlotte, Lydia, Titus, and Vance. I learned at girls camp years ago that it's important to make these types of assignments up front. Otherwise you get the same kids helping while others slink off and make themselves scarce.
Okay, now let's talk about the back story for this camp. Cousin Camp has been happening in one form or another for years. We had a few family reunions with siblings and families - most notable was when we went to Lava Hot Springs in 2018. There were a few versions of Cousin Camp at my house in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 Lindsey and Emily had also gone camping together. That had gone so well we decided to do all of cousin camp in 2022 as a camping trip. That's the year we officially started calling it Cousin Camp. In 2023 we were able to use Lindsey's inlaws house while they were on their mission. We did a lot of cool stuff around Cedar City that year.
On the last day of Cousin Camp last year we were sitting in the big kitchen of the house talking about where we wanted to go next year. I brough up Bear Lake. I'd just been there a few weeks earlier with Brandon and the kids. I really wanted to go back. Some of the kids liked the idea so I filed that away.
After Christmas this year my siblings and I started talking dates for Cousin Camp. This is always a difficult undertaking. Lindsey comes from Houston for about 2-3 weeks every summer so we usually work around her travel plans. This year Billy would also come down from Canada so we were working around his schedule as well. We were able to pin point the last week of June as a good time.
I was still very much "Team Bear Lake" and everyone else thought it was a good idea. So I put a reminder into my phone to remember to try to reserve the campsites the day they became available. I knew the exact campsites I wanted. I wanted 20, 19, 18, if possible. When the day came, someone snatched up 20 before I could, but I did get 19 and 18. I also reserved 16 because it was near the other two. I felt so victorious about getting those campsites.
I got three campsites because for sure my family, Lindsey's family, and Emily's family were coming. Billy's family and Hillary's family were more up in the air. But each site could hold 2 tents so if they decided to come they could just squish in with one of the other sites. Each site could also have up to 8 people. 8 times 3 is 24 and if everyone came we'd have 23 people. So it would work.
But Billy ended up making plans to fly to Texas to visit Becca's family that week (and then dropped out of that trip when he had an opportunity to play with the Utah Symphony.) And Hillary couldn't make it either. So it was just me, Lindsey, and Emily . . . and 13 kids.
I'd reserved the sites starting with a Sunday because I figured we'd have a better chance of getting the sites that way. I didn't actually plan for all of us to be there Sunday. I figured my family would go on Sunday and get things ready and everyone else would show up Monday. But Emily and Lindsey were eager to get the party started so they planned to come on Sunday.
Sunday Day 1
On Sunday I got up and took care of a few last minute things around the house. I pulled all the food out of the fridge and freezer and put it into two coolers. I designated one cooler the freezer and one the fridge. That freezer one had three big frozen things of juice. They stayed frozen for like three days.
I also packed all our bread into our collapsible bag cooler. I had another small cooler for the food that we'd eat later that day.
I wish I'd taken a picture of the car all packed because it was PACKED. I had the back seat laid down and the whole back area was full. We had things on one of the middle bucket seats. The other seat was for Charlotte who was wedged in very tightly. Lydia had the front seat.
We started driving around 10:30. Technically the quickest way to Bear Lake is to go along the route we always take to Utah, but I'd already driven that way enough this month. Plus that route is so boring and I just can't associate it with Bear Lake. So we drove over to Pocatello and then down and across through Lava, Soda Springs, to Montpiller. Then it was all the way down to the southern end of the lake.
We got to the state park right at 3:00. Brandon was there waiting at the entrance. He'd got there about 5 minutes before me. He had Derrick and Veronica with him. They'd been at a family reunion. Veronica had lots of stories about doing fun things with her cousins.
We drove into the park and found our campsite. I took site number 16 because it was in the sun. The kids were like, "Mom why are we getting this site. It's so sunny." I pointed to the trees on the east of the site. I said, "This site will be shady for a long time in the morning so you can sleep in longer." They liked that idea.
Lindsey would have 18 - which I'd thought was a shady site, but it was actually a sunny spot too.
Emily got 19 which was the perfect shady. We wanted her to have this site so if any of her kids needed naps during the day they would have a shady spot. This was also going to be our main gathering space. That's where we put the canopy and all the camp chairs. It was also RIGHT on the edge of the lake. This would be perfect for letting kids play while the parents watched from the shore.
Brandon hung around and helped get our tent set up. He also helped get the canopy and other things up.
It was really hot so the kids were in their swimming suits as soon as the tents were up. Here are Charlotte and Lydia enjoying their hammock.
Here's another view of how close we were to the lake. We got really used to this view, but every once in a while I'd just stop and LOOK at it and think, "Oh we are so lucky!"
Brandon and I spent about an hour in the shade after putting up our tent in the heat. Then we decided to tackle the tent we'd brought for Lindsey. This was our old tent that folded over on us in Galveston. Brandon had repaired the broken pole. The tent was basically on it's last legs, but it would work for this trip. There wasn't any bad weather forecasted, but Brandon still took extra care to anchor it down.
Lindsey showed up as soon as we finished with her tent. She told me I didn't need to have set up her tent. I told her, "Lindsey, I would build you a log cabin if it meant we could hang out."
Emily arrived a little after Lindsey. We set out all the dinner food. We were planning to roast hot dogs, but it was too hot to build a fire so Brandon cooked them on the stove. I also had pasta salad and cowboy caviar.
Brandon had to leave after dinner. He had a long drive back to Twin Falls. He would have loved to stay with us, but he had to work. So he went home.
All the kids got into their swimming suits and were soon playing on the sand. They wanted me to blow up all my inflatables but I was not interested in standing in the hot parking lot doing that. So I told them we'd do it on Monday.
They all had fun on the beach and water anyway.
This really was so perfect.
The kids took turn burying each other in the sand.
Juniper thought it was all so fun. She had brought like 4 swim suits and would wear each one each day.
Here's Veronica in the sand a little later.
Bridger brought this game and I was really surprised when I got it to balance on the first try. I took this picture and it literally fell as soon as the picture took.
Here's the view of our three campsites. My site has the blue and orange tent. I was in the blue tent with Derrick and Veronica and the twins were in the orange tent. Lindsey was in the blue tent in the middle of the picture. And Emily was in the blue tent on the right side.
We hadn't bought any firewood yet and the campground store was closed. But we were able to find half a box left at an empty campsite. So we lit a fire with that and made smores. I had quite the assortment of goodies. I had marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers of course. But I also had reeses, and fudge stripe cookies. I even had chocolate chips and marshmallows that you could put into an ice cream cone and then put in the fire.
The kids were in awe of the s'more smorgasbord. It was fun to have that much fun stuff. But it was also kind of hectic. I'd forgot that s'mores kind of stress me out with all the sticks and fire and burning marshmallows. But we survived.
The kids all went to bed as the sun set which was about 9:30.
Monday June 25 - Day 2
I knew the sun would start making things light around 5:30 so I expected to wake up early. But I was very disappointed to wake up at 4:30. The birds in the trees were tweeting wildly. They were so loud!
Derrick, Veronica, and I were all awake around 5:00. We all had to go to the bathroom so we got up and did that. Instead of going back to the tent Derrick and Veronica wanted to sit in camp chairs on the shore of the lake. We sat there together for a long time and watched the sun come up. It was beautiful to see the lake reflecting the pink and gold sky.
Eventually Veronica realized that going back to bed was an option so she went back to her nice warm sleeping bag. Derrick on the other hand was AWAKE! He wanted to sit with me and keep watching the lake. I found a blanket and we snuggled in that.
A little later I had Derrick help me carry all the coolers and totes of food down to the campsite. For most of the week I kept the food in the car so that I didn't have to worry about all the little ground chucks getting into the food, but since we were staying at the campsites all day I figured it would be easier to have the food accessible.
Around 7:00 a few other people got up. I had fruit and fruit cups out on the table for any hungry early risers. At 8:00 I got out the real breakfast stuff. It was yogurt, granola, and frozen fruit. It was really good.
Group one was supposed to help with making breakfast, but all of them except Hazel were still asleep. That ended up being a theme all week. I said that next year we should just assign the moms to make breakfast.
But Group 3 was helpful with cleaning up breakfast. Here are kids hanging out by the beach.
After breakfast was cleaned up I had the kids come up to the car and help me blow up the inflatables. I have a car pump that we plugged into the car and used that to blow up everything. I had the toys we've had for a while; two big tubes, a boat, and the whale. Recently I bought another little boat. And I'd jut bought two more big tubes because the seats had ripped out of the old ones. The kids had so much fun with all of these.
I kept one of the new tubes for me. When we were done blowing everything up I took that tube down to the lake and spent about an hour floating in it. I'd been looking forward to that for a long time.
For lunch we had sandwiches on French bread. But because I knew we had some picky eaters I also put out regular bread and peanut butter, jelly, honey, and nutella.
After lunch I put together snack bags for each kid. Each bag had a nutty bar, some fruit snacks, and gold fish. The kids could have those around 2:00. The bags were all labeled so the kids could keep track of their snacks without any fighting.
Derrick and I drove into Garden City to buy firewood and to get gas. He fell asleep on the drive there and slept the whole time I got gas and while I ran into the store. He woke up on the way back.
When I got back to camp it was my turn for a nap. I laid on a blanket in the shade and slept for a long time.
Around 5:00 I started working on dinner with the help of Group 3. We put together taco salad. It was pretty easy because I'd already precooked the taco meat. We just had to heat that up along with refried beans. We cut up a few tomatoes and lettuce. We had lots of chips and cheese. It was a good meal.
After dinner I was able to go float in the water some more.
The boys had been talking about doing cooking experiments over the fire. So after dinner they lit a fire and starting roasting things like apples, oranges, and carrots. They had a lot of fun with that.
They really wanted me to get out the left over smore stuff, but I wasn't so sure. I didn't have as much as before and I KNEW there would be fights. I told them I'd get out the marshmallows, but I gave them a big lecture about how I didn't want to hear them fighting.
Welllllllllllllll . . . there was fighting. And so very quickly the fire was over and it was time for bed.
The kids had been swimming ALL DAY LONG and they were exhausted. Though some were still resisting sleep. Emily's kids were having trouble settling down so I offered her some melatonin. Last year at Bear Lake I'd discovered that melatonin was really helpful on camping trips. Emily made the same discovery this year. She said that all of her kids fell asleep so fast.
Derrick fell asleep at 9:00 and slept until 9:00 the next morning. He was shocked when I told him he'd slept for 12 hours.
Tuesday June 25th Day 3. Tuesday morning was a little overcast which meant we didn't have birds chirping at 4:30. THANK GOODNESS. I was still awake pretty early, but since Derrick was asleep I didn't have to live like 4 lives before breakfast.
When I did get up the day was lovely. I took a shower and that was nice.
This morning breakfast was muffins and fruit. We needed a quick breakfast because we needed to leave by 10:00. So we had breakfast and then a group cleaned up breakfast while another group cleaned up the campsite and another group helped me put together sack lunches.
At 10:00 we left the campsite and drove north to St Charles and then up the canyon to Minnetonka Cave. Our tour was for 12:00 and we got there at 11:00. This gave us plenty of time to eat. We'd brought things to make hoagie sandwiches so we made those and the kids got the things in their sack lunches.
Here are Charlotte and Juniper eating together. I always say that Juniper looks a lot like Charlotte did.
We still had some time to kill after lunch was all cleaned up so we had the kids get in order of age and take a picture.
And then we challenged them to get into alphabetical order.
At 12:00 our tour guide called us over and directed us to the opening of the cave. We had to walk on a boardwalk on the side of the mountain to get there.
We took a group picture at the entrance.
The guide went over the rules and then we went into the cave.
My kids were old hats at caves, but this was the first cave for some of Lindsey's kids and all of Emily's kids.
There were some cool moments like when the tour guide had Asher shine a lazer onto this rock and it shined everywhere. Later, when the guide demonstrated total cave darkness she shined the lazer on Emily's diamond ring. The light reflected around like a disco ball. I've never seen anyone do that in a cave before. I gave her a tip based primarily on that moment. (And because we had a bunch of teenagers in our group.)
At some point Veronica asked if anyone had ever broken a bone in the cave. The guide said that as far as she knew only a tour guide had. He'd broken his wrist. The little kids were very interested in that and so the tour guide showed them the exact spot where it happened.
I took some pictures, but honestly I was comparing things to Carl's Bad Caverns so I didn't take many pictures. But I did take a few.
Everyone thought the cave was pretty cool.
But some kids were VERY happy to get out of there.
We drove back to camp and the kids spent the afternoon swimming. I'd stopped at the store on the way home and bought more sandwich bread and marshmallows. I put sandwich stuff out on the table and the kids could help themselves to that all afternoon long. That worked really well.
Emily and I took turns taking naps in her tent. That was nice. Much better than the ground from the night before.
Then me, Lindsey, and Emily were able to have a nice hour sitting together talking while all the kids played. I was going to buy more bowls for chili that night, but Lindsey was like, "Just stay here." So I stayed and we had the chili in cups.
Asher and Rocky had been trying to catch the little ground chucks the whole time. They came over and showed an "injured" one that they'd found. We were all a little suspicious about how it came to be injured, but it was best to just not ask questions. Later they came over with a strange stick. And a third time they came with a snake. Lindsey said that one was the best show and tell. She says Rocky always finds snakes.
Derrick was fascinated by the snake and spent a lot of time with the big boys as they looked for more.
Since we had sandwiches out all afternoon we had dinner a little later this time. Maybe closer to 7:00. We had chilli and freetos and all the things that we hadn't eaten with taco salad rolled over nicely to this meal.
After the night before's fire debacle I'd come up with a better plan for this night. I decided we'd do the fire at my campsites fire pit. This was so much better because it just felt so much more open up there. So at 8:30 when my campsite finally had shade we moved the camp chairs over there.
This worked so much better. For one, it was further away from Emily's tent so we didn't wake Juniper up. This was important because earlier in the evening Emily had tried to put Juniper to bed. She'd had her in her pajamas and in the tent. Emily left to go to the bathroom and when she came back Juniper had changed back into a swimsuit and was playing at the beach with all the big kids. So yes, it was very important to keep Juniper asleep.
Another reason I liked this other area better was because we had neighbors in site 20 and I'm not quite sure they enjoyed having 12 kids fighting over marshmallows RIGHT next to them at 9:00 at night.
And the third reason was this area was just more open. Somehow the canopy and clothesline and cooking things that were around the other campsite made things more chaotic when we were also roasting mashmallows. Up here there was nothing but camp chairs. So the fire felt less stressful.
The kids had fun roasting things and then they took turns telling scary stories. The kids had talked about staying up SUPER late, so I was thinking they'd be up until midnight. But Derrick was the last to go to bed - at like 10:30.
Our nights were all very uneventful. The weather was nice and the kids slept well. For some reason I had to get up to go to the bathroom a lot that night. I liked being able to see stars and later the moon.
Wednesday June 26 Day 4
We woke up to an overcast sky on Wednesday. Which was nice because it kept the birds quiet. We had our most involved breakfast this day. We had everything for Egg McMuffin type sandwiches. Eggs, sausage, bacon, and english muffins. They were really yummy.
Sadly, this was the day that Lindsey had to leave. She and her kids were flying back to Houston early on Thursday. They were staying in a hotel by the airport that night.
She sorted through her stuff and returned the things she'd borrowed from me and Emily. We helped her take down her tent.
We took a sisters picture by the beach (it didn't turn out great and I'm not taking the time to hunt it down right now.) And then Lindsey left with Rocky, Knoxx, and Eliza. I kind of felt like, "there goes the light of my life." Lindsey has been my best friend my whole life and it just sucks that we don't live close to each other.
But hey, Emily was still there and we still had 10 kids running around so things were still fun.
We had an optional field trip to Fossil Butte planned for that morning. I was going to take as many kids as would fit in my van and drive to about 40 miles to that site in Wyoming. But we found out that the water at our bathroom was going to be turned off from about 10:00 to 2:00 that day. So that was enough to make Emily decide to come along too.
My phone was on like 8 percent charge when we started driving. I charged it a bit while we drove, but it never really got very high. So I didn't take many pictures at Fossil Butte.
The kids liked the museum. It has lots of cool fish fossils. Then we drove over to a very pretty picnic area.
Where we were promptly eaten by mosquitos.
Everyone was pretty happy to make it back to the lake after that adventure. Earlier in the day everyone had been a little like, "Why are we still staying here?" But after the mosquitos at Fossil Butte everyone was like, "Oh Bear Lake, we LOVE you!"
I did one more store run when we were back. We were low on cups and we needed bowls. Also we'd used up the last of the melatonin. And I needed milk for breakfast the next morning. I bought milk and more ice to keep it cold.
When I got back I put out the last of the sandwich stuff for anyone to eat. And then I took a tube and went out into the water one last time. It was probably my favorite time out there. I took the paddles and would paddle myself out far and then drift back in. It was so relaxing!
I took a shower and then started making dinner. Titus was always super helpful when it was his turn. He'd helped with Chili the night before and he was excited to help again with the noodles. We cooked noodles and sauce. That sounds like a really boring meal, but everyone LOVED it.
While we were eating I told the kids two stories. I told them the sad story about my earlier years at girls camp that always went well until we had to clean up on the last day. During clean up everyone seemed to get mad at each other and that was a sad way to end camp. Then I told them the happy story about the year we decided to clean up most of the camp on the last night of camp. That way in the morning all we had to do was take down the tents. On the last day everyone in my ward was happy and we even went around and helped the stake leaders clean up their site.
The kids liked that story. Asher asked me, "Do they still do that in that ward?" I told him I din't know about that ward, but that it was always a tradition in my family. I said we were going to clean up that night.
So after dinner everyone worked to get camp chairs put away. We deflated the blow ups. We took down the clothesline. Everyone organized their stuff in their tents. It was great to have everything put away.
Titus was super helpful and volunteered to wash out the pots that we'd cooked pasta and sauce. I admired his attitude so much that I paid him a dollar. That may not seem like much, but that's the only money I paid anyone all week. I wanted him to know that I valued his initiative.
When everything was cleaned up we played a little game to divvy out the last of the snacks. I had two piles. Pile One had things like left over nutty bars, oatmeal cream pies, and oreos. Pile 2 had fruit snacks and pretzels.
I wrote everyone's name on little slips of paper and then put them in a bowl. When I pulled a name that person could pick out something from Pile One and something from Pile Two.
We played two rounds of that and everyone liked the treats they got. It went really well and I want to do it every year on the last night.
I also went through the last of the food and divided it between Emily and I. There really wasn't much left. I'd done a good job of estimating what we'd eat.
I was down to one tote that still had non-perishable food in it. The other tote was empty so I started filling it with things like hammocks and the picnic blanket.
At first I just put all my stuff in a pile on the ground. But we looked out over the lake and saw what looked like storm clouds heading our way. So I had everyone carry the stuff over to my car and I just kind of shoved it in haphazardly. I'd pack it for real the next day.
Charlotte did not like the look of those clouds. She started to have flash backs to the storm on Galveston Island. She wanted to sleep in the car. I told her that wouldn't work very well. I said if it got bad she could come in my tent.
Around 9:00 Emily started putting her kids to bed. Mine weren't really sleepy yet so I suggested a walk along the beach. So we all started out. Here I am taking a no make up selfie on the beach.
The lake was so beautiful.
Here are the kids walking along the shore.
I'm really glad we had time for this. It's one of my favorite memories from the trip.
Another attempt at a selfie.
Around 9:30 a big wind kicked up. The kids immediately turned around and headed back to camp.
Look at those waves. You can also see the wind blowing Charlotte's sweat shirt.
The waves were so impressive.
As we passed other campsites I saw people struggling with their canopies blowing in the wind. I was so glad we'd already taken ours down.
We hurried back to our tent. Charlotte and Lydia were not interested in sleeping in their own tent that night. So we hurried and moved their air mattress into my tent. Charlotte was so scared so I had Veronica share with Lydia and I had Charlotte share my air mattress. I held her hand and talked to her until she fell asleep.
The wind was blowing hard and the rain fly was shaking a lot, but our poles were secure. I wondered if Lindsey's tent would have survived this rain storm.
Everyone fell asleep while the wind was still blowing.
Later in the night I woke up to rain falling. But it was a gentle rain.
Around 5:00 a thunder storm went through. But there was no wind or rain with the booming thunder.
Thursday June 27 Day 5
We'd survived the night, but everyone was still pretty eager to get out of camp as fast as possible. I'd bought three of those little 8 packs of boxes of cereal. There were 12 of us so everyone could have 2. That was breakfast.
The kids and I worked on rolling up sleeping bags and getting everything to the car. I was playing a whole new game of tetris to get everything to fit. I'd given back the two coolers to Emily so I didn't have to worry about fitting those. We'd eaten through all the bread that had been in the bag cooler so that could be folded up. My small cooler was the perfect size to hold all our towels. And I shoved a lot of little things into the pink totes.
So in theory I should have had more room. But I was also traveling with two kids that I didn't have in the car with me on the way there. And they both had rather large suitcases. (Which was kind of pointless because they were in swimming suits most of the trip and Derrick wore the same outfit for like three days.) Fortunately I was able to squish all the clothes into one suitcase and put that suitcase inside the other. So that helped.
I reconfigured the seats so that two back seats were down and one was up. Charlotte volunteered to be wedged into that one back seat. Then I packed things between the two middle bucket seat. Again I wish I'd through to take a picture.
In the end it did seem like we had slightly more room. I could almost see out of the back which was an improvement over the drive down.
We took down the tent and got it packed up. Then I just needed to put a few more things in the car and suddenly we were done.
Emily was also nearly done. She was just trying to fit the last of her camp chairs in her van. She said she was fine so I gave her a hug and then I was on my way.
The kids and I could have just driven north back up to Idaho and then back tracked the way we came. But somewhere along the way I'd promised the kids Aggie Ice Cream. So we drove into Logan. Lydia said she'd been looking forward to driving through Logan Canyon all week.
We went to Aggie Ice cream and had cones. It was a little strange to have that much ice cream at 10:00 am, but hey that's how it worked out.
Then we started our long trek home. We went north to Pocatello which sounds simple, but seemed to take forever. We got stuck in a traffic detour, then we needed to stop for gas, and then I had to take a little nap at Red Rock Pass.
In Pocatello the kids wanted to eat at Burger King. But the one we chose was horribly slow. I stood at the counter for over 5 minutes without any of the employees acknowledging me. They were rushing to fill drive through orders - which I understood - but it would have been nice to have someone say, "We'll be with you in a moment" or something.
So we left and went to McDonalds where they got our food ready very quickly.
Then we went to Brooklynns playground for old times sake and to check out the new splash pad. We ended up running into a family from our Twin Falls ward and then as I was leaving I saw a friend from my Pocatello ward. So it was a popular place.
The drive from Pocatello to Twin Falls is only 90 minutes but it felt long. I was really looking forward to being home.
Brandon was leaving on his own camping trip that afternoon and I'd been joking that we'd wave to eachother as we passed on the interstate. Well guess what? I really did see Brandon drive by in the Pilot.
We made it home around 3:30 and the main order of business was for everyone to take a shower. Charlotte and Lydia had been showering at the camp ground, but Derrick and Veronica had not, so they were the first to take a turn.
Brandon, bless his dear little soul, had done all the grocery shopping for us. So there was lots of food in the house. He even had freezer pizza for us to have for dinner that night.
That evening after everything cooled down we went out to the car and unpacked everything. Thanks to my garage organization work earlier in the month it was really easy to put everything away. The hardest thing was actually the left over food. The pink tote was in the kitchen for quite a long time while I got around to emptying it out.
I also watered everything that evening. I found all these strawberries.
Friday was like the Monday-ist Friday ever. I went to work and was there for nearly 5 hours. My coworker had been covering for me. She'd been helpful, but I needed to check her work -because that's who I am as a person. And then there were a bunch of other payments that I needed to do that she hadn't had time for. (She's also in charge of our whole intake process and that's a big job.)
I came home and Charlotte and Lydia wanted me to take them to Joanns to buy fabric and supplies for a dragon they wanted to make. They'd watched like 5 Youtube videos and had lots of ideas.
I told them I needed to take an hour nap and then we'd go. It was 2:00 when I laid down. And it was 4:30 when I woke up. I couldn't believe how tired I'd been.
We went to Joanns and bought the things and they went right to work when we got home. Less than 30 hours later they had a dragon. But I'm not allowed to take pictures yet.
I'd ordered Paddington 1 and 2 at the library because I've always heard how great those movies are. The kids were a little unsure because they looked like "little kid" movies. But they were willing to give them a try. We watched Paddinton 1 and loved it. On Saturday we watched Paddington 2 and loved that even more.
I had a bit more of a brain on Saturday. I wrote a lot for this blog in the morning and also watered everything. Look how pretty the larkspur flowers are right now.
I also harvested the strange little volunteer garlic plants that grew in my yard this year. Not sure how they got there, but okay.
Look at this pretty path. I really like the Daisies.
And my tart cherry tree is ready.
The kids helped me clean the house and do the laundry. But most of the day was pretty chill. I took another long nap in the afternoon.
I was saving my energy for Sunday. Beleive it or not, we are driving to Utah AGAIN. Brandon's nephew is having his mission farewell. We'll drive down there for that. Meet up with Brandon. And then drive home.
And then we aren't going ANYWHERE during all of July - at least on week days. Weekends are another matter.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
And I realized I never really capped off the whole Cousin Camp portion of this post. Basically it was worth all the work to have all the kids spending time together. Yeah there were some arguments, but overall the kids really get along well. I'm happy we could help them develop these friendships.
