4th of July in Utah!

We had a great 4th of July weekend! We drove all day and night (10 hours) to get to my sister Cora's house in UT late tuesday night. We "slept in" until 8 because her kids wanted to play! It was just so good to be there with everyone! I love my little nephew and nieces! Lils and Ebay were in heaven at their house! They have a huge backyard, dog, cat, and even a goat- and of course their cousins! We played and lazed around that morning until the guys went off to see "Transformers" leaving us women and 5 children to see "Ratatoille". By this time my other sister, Lorel, was with us and we had a really fun time with the kids. Later that day Mom and Dad flew in from Virginia and my brother Gibbs and his wife came down from Layton with their sweet little baby, Willow! We were just missing Cordell and Orin- but they got kicked off their flight because Cordell's paintball gun had a compressed air tank that wasn't safe for the flight. We set off some 4th of July "Utah fire code safe" fireworks and enjoyed the far off neighbors around us with their illegal fireworks!! After the kids were all in bed, Brian set up his projection screen on the warehouse in the backyard and we watched a movie out on the blow-up air mattresses. It was a beautiful night with the cool breeze and occational firework going off around us.

The next day we were getting ready for our big camping weekend past Price, Ut in 9 Mile Canyon. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive from Highland- so Clark and I stopped by the BYU Bookstore to break up the trip! :) We had to go back- get some new shirts, check out the Creamery and Clark needed and new hat. It was great being back there and we continuously try to instill some Cougar pride in our kids! After our exciting drive to the canyon we were very pleased with the campsite! There were two very old cabins that reminded me of the one Joseph Smith grew up in that had actually raised a family with seven kids! They were tiny one room wood cabins! But they were perfect for camping along with a pop-up camper that Clark and I shared with Lorel and Craig. E was able to get his naps in and get to sleep at 7... so I was VERY happy about that. Lils was a wild child running around with everyone else, getting dirty, playing in the tiny stream. She got to stay up really late with her cousins and make s'mores and scones with us by the fire.

By this time Orin and Cordell had made it and we were also camping with Brian's brother (5 kids) and sister's (6 kids) families and parents! So needeless to say- we had a lot of cute, dirty little kids running around! E loved playing on the little swing set and Grammy would be stuck there pushing him for a long time! She loved it! :) He also loves getting dirty, throwing rocks in the water and of course the three dogs that were there! Lils and Ebay love dogs and Lils made it her duty to give one of them a walk every day. E made sure the dog food was suitable for the italian greyhound... yum- like father, like son! (Clark used to eat his dog's food growing up, it's good for you!) The main fun of the trip was paintballing! We all got in on the action. It was so fun! I had never paintballed before, but Clark, Brian and Cordell are pretty much experts. (is that something to be proud of?? :) So we were off shooting eachother and having a great time! I tell ya, so far this summer we have been so lucky to go camping with experts! Clark's parent's had everything and really good food when we went camping with them and this time Brian's family was uber-prepared too! Yummy food! I mean, we had belgian waffles, eggs, sausage and homemade buttermilk syrup for breakfast one morning for crying out loud! Camping in style. What a fun time!

We got back to Cora and Brian's Saturday evening and just watched a movie together. We were so tired! It was just so nice to be all together with the family. Sunday morning, Clark, Lil, E and I began our 10 hour journey back to Folsom, California. I was feeling really nauseous and sick before we left but we went anyway. About an hour later I was in the worst pain ever! I didn't think I could make it home. I couldn't even make it another 10 minutes in the car! It was so bad- but we pushed through to Elko (3 hrs) where they had a hospital. We were there for 5 hours! I had testing for appendisitis- but it was negative. It was just the worst stomach flu I have ever had! Three days later I still feel pretty bad. But a lot better than I did. We ended up going straight to Clark's parents that night and Susan stayed home from work on Monday to help me with the kids! What a life saver!