camping in the rain

Dallan July 7, 2009 It is Tuesdy. Again. And I am over due, again with my letter to my favorite brother who is on a mission. This last week was of course full of stuff I can not remember but I will fill you in a bit on our 4th of July camping experience. We packed up and left for the mountains north of Mackay ID on Thursday morning. We might not have done any type of camping trip but Jon’s Hunting buddies called him up and said “come up and crash our family reunion and we will do some scouting for elk“. Jon of course was eager to oblige and so off we went. We did the normal camping thing. Hunter fell in the creek and I barley caught him as he was falling into the fire, His hair and eyebrows and eyelashes all got quite singed! We took up the kids bikes and they rode and rode and rode. Our friends had their kid’s 4 wheelers and motorbikes and Stiles and Marcus were in heaven when they were granted a turn to ride the bikes around the track. One afternoon when most of the kids were not at camp I even let Stiles drive my big 4 wheeler around the track. He was doing great until he started watching Marcus who was stuck in the mud and then Stiles ran into two parked motorcycles, and knocked them over. It was a big lesson for him about always always always watch where you are going, Luckily no body was hurt and the bikes were fine. I took a birthday cake for William and it got eaten all up despite many other yummy treats floating around. And William is now officially 1 years old! We had plans to leave Camp on Saturday in the middle of the day so as to be home and celebrate the 4th of july in Pocatello but Mother nature decided to Veto our plans and sent hail, and rain ,and rain, and hail until the road was a very treacherous muddy mess. We took a look at it on the 4 wheelers and decided that the 4-wheel drive trucks could probably maneuver it okay but to try to haul our heavy 5th wheel trailer down the steep slicker than snot mountain road was probably not a smart move. So we decided to camp another day and wait for the road to dry out. Instead we packed up in the truck and drove down to Mackay for their firework show, and we did some fishing at the fishing pond below the fish hatchery in Mackay. Erica is quite the little fisher girl she casts her line better than Jon and has a ton of patience. The firework show in Mackay was awesome. They do it over the reservoir and the big tall mountains on either side of the valley echo the boom of the fireworks like three times. It was loud! And spectacular! The show would not have happened if our group had not come down to see it. A part of the show, (an electrical part I think) that makes the show run, had busted and they didn’t have the part they needed to fix it. But in one of the trucks we managed to have the needed part, and the show was only delayed by 15 minutes. So we went back to camp after the firework show, and slept in late. Since it was now Sunday we decided that to try to keep the day holy we didn’t allow the kids to ride their bikes or the motor bikes - they did not think that was cool. And we opted to stay one more night so that we would not be traveling on Sunday and came home Monday morning. -Hence I have neglected to write until Tuesday. So that was our week end in a nut shell
Now for something to make you laugh. Stiles had a lesson about always watching where you are going when driving something. Well Now you may laugh at me for needing the exact same lesson. In preparation to leave I needed to move my Van out of the way so that we could pack the trucks and the camper. And so I was backing my van out of the drive, and had not really thought it all the way through as to where I was going to park it so that it would be “Out of the way.” And I was watching Hunter, who was very distraught that I was in the Van apparently going somewhere and he was not in on the ride and was chasing me as I was backing up. And well long story short, I was not watching where I was going and Side swiped the post in the drive way by the flag pole. Yep took the resale value of our van from almost nothing to the negative values. The passenger door just does not look pretty anymore at all, but still functions fine. So when you are driving something, don’t watch other people and what they are doing, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS watch where you are going.
Keep up the good work. We pray for you always and hope that you are well. You are lucky that you have a vague idea of when it will rain next on you. We just have no clue what the weather will do here. But like DAD said the crops are growing and we are eating big yummy sweet peas out of the garden and Erica and Hunter can get lost inside the corn patch now. So the Lord is blessing us even though the weather just seems like the craziest thing we have ever seen.

Love you tons, Hope you have a Happy birthday on Wednesday. We will eat something yummy and think about you.

Love Monica and the rest of the dripping wet camping hoodlums.