Don't Mess with Grandma's Push Pins!

(Thanks for the great word Amy!)

Well, we actually made it to the camping trip this year.
It was about 100 degrees in the valley, so it was really nice to get up in the canyon where it was about 20 degrees cooler.

And gorgeous!

But, because of last years "drama", my aunt went to extra measures to make sure we all found the camp this year. She bought these beautiful, sparkly push pins to hang our florescent pink signs just to make sure no one could miss the way. Well of course there has to be stupid people in the world and they decided to camp that weekend too. They put their sign over our sign and took my aunts push pins to hang their other signs up. To make a long story short, my aunt wrote a little note about leaving other people's things alone and it caused a little rift that included 6 guys trying to fight my cousin by ripping off his riding goggles. (I still think you could have taken them, but way to go on staying in control!) They eventually came and gave his goggles back, they were broken, but they talked things over and calmed things down. So, don't mess with a grandma's push pins!

Connor loved climbing the rock hills, playing in the dirt, finding cool sticks that can act as a hammer so he could "fix" things, and riding his "horsey", or the fallen log we had next to our camp.

Sydney played the whole time too climbing the hills, finding cool walking sticks, also playing on the horse, but to her and her aunt Marie, it was a Unicorn, picking ALL the wildflowers within walking distance of our camp, and she loved putting wood on the fire, or really anything that would burn. Thanks Dad.
Oh, and we can't forget to mention Dough Boys! Sydney is modeling them quite well.

The kids had a lot of fun playing with their aunt Marie, and cousins Chase and Alivia.

My uncle Kent and his dogs Max, Cinder, and Theo
They also had lots of Dogs to play with.

And of course, I cannot go camping without rain, but it was worth it this time.

Back to the "hickification"

I didn't get any pictures with me and the kids riding the 4 wheeler this year, probably because John was out learning how to ride my cousin's bike. After 5 hours, I think he got the hang of it, although, it was not crash free.
Please, everyone take a moment of silence for John's baby.

John's physical body was not wounded to badly, but alas, he was quite hurt emotionally. What is he going to do you may ask? Oh ya, he already has plans to sell it on eBay (ya, people will actually buy it) and get the new upgrade. Don't you feel so bad for him now?

Don't I look tough? Don't let that fool you, I was shaking when I was done shooting this gun. Not quite the same as my dad's 22 we shot growing up. This was my cousin Jon's military grade gun with some name that includes lots of numbers I'm sure. It was quite heavy and honestly I don't know how our troops lug that thing around and then can actually shoot accurately with that thing. Okay, I realize they practice a lot, and are A LOT stronger than me, but wow. I was a little intimidated, but proud it didn't knock me on my butt. Thanks for preventing that Jon.

Then we moved from real guns to paintball guns. Ya, I stayed out of this one.

John, Jon, Kyle, Matt, Randy, Mitch

and my cousin Jenny joined them later. She was always tougher than me growing up too.

Here are some pictures of the damage.

Pink hair suits you dear.

So, after the game was over, John and my brother Matt decided it would be funny to tease my brother Mitch a little bit by shooting the trees close to him and scare him a little. Well Matt hit Mitch a few times and so Mitch turned around just shooting. He hit John all the way up his back and hit his face. Johns face mask was up because the game was "over." Check out that welt on his cheek! The ones on his back actually turned into nasty yellow and blue bruises.

And they wanted me to play. Ha ha, funny.