Campout '09

We had a lot of fun on the first annual (?) Welch Family campout. Syd claims it was the best camping trip she's ever been on (although she can't remember any other camp outs that weren't girls camp.) I forced my family out into the woods this year because I always remembered having so much fun on family camp outs when I was younger, and I thought it would be appropriate to pass that on to my kids...right?!

We headed across the state to Sun Valley so that Michael would be able to meet up with us. We got to our campsite Thursday night an set up camp, Kort's family met us later that night and Michael met us the following day. The night's weren't that cold, the day's weren't too hot (almost though), the mosquitoes were awful (we finished off our can of Off), we got rained on twice, and it was a ton of fun...even at 6 months pregnant! We ate, played in the stream, hung out around the fire, fished, and got to see the amazing stars. I love looking at the stars in the mountains, it's one of my favorite things. I'm always amazed at how many stars light the sky when you are in the middle of no where. We could even see the milky way. It was gorgeous! I love camping!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, way too many pictures of our camp out and a few stories that probably only I will think are funny/worth telling...I bet you'll be wising you were me by the end of it!

Owen was FILTHY within minutes of arriving at camp. The kid was seriously filthy the entire time. He just loves dirt.

Our second morning there Ains yelled out (after eating half of her pancake), "This pancake is disgusting! These are the worst pancakes ever!' Dan was sitting across the table from her and had cooked the pancakes. We couldn't help but laugh. Especially when we realized that the pancakes actually were kind of disgusting because they were doughy. It was the batter and the grill that caused the problem though...not Dan's cooking skills!

All the kids had fun hanging out in Grandma and Grandpa's trailer. There was even a rumor at one point that Grandpa was teaching a few of the kids how to play Black Jack....hmmmmm

We all got our fishing licenses and decided to give fishing a try while we were there. By we, I mean the kids that were free and the men. Owen had fun casting in his line. We sat out for a while one morning trying our luck in the stream right by our campsite. We didn't have much luck.

Until we saw the Fish and Game fish truck drive in front of our campsite and Kort and I followed it to see where they were dumping in the fish. We all hurried and grabbed our poles and headed back to the creak. Unfortunately we all headed out in separate directions and so a few of us ended up running around random trails trying to find different people. Let's just say after about 2 hours of this my feet were killing me. Note to self...flip flops do not make good hiking wear. We eventually met up and gathered around my Dad when we found out that he had caught a couple fish. He caught 3 pretty quickly, and Bria and Dan fished for hours that night and eventually caught another one. Success!

And then Syd and John got to gut their first fish...yuck! I refuse to handle the fish! They both seamed to like it though.

The next morning we headed out to a well stocked pond that Michael found. My dad caught several fish with his magic lure.
John was a little frustrated because everyone seemed to be having luck but him. But after some determination (and being handed my dad's magic pole) he managed to catch a fish.

He let Owen reel it in, although Owen was scared of the fish once it came out of the water. He wanted nothing to do with it.

That night the guys headed back out to the magic pond for some more fishing. I think my dad caught over 30, Dan caught 22, John caught 13 (although I was told that one of his was the biggest), and I don't think Michael kept track. They let all the fish go and have no photographic proof, but based on our luck earlier in the day, I wouldn't be surprised.

*I didn't sleep that well this trip, due to my refusal to get out of my sleeping bag during the middle of the night while camping just to use the bathroom, and because one night I was sure that there was a squirrel in our tent that kept touching my head, but it turned out to just be Ainsley's arm. I wish I would have realized that before I turned on the light 3 separate time searching for the random squirrel and trying to wake everyone else up to help me find it!

**I also learned on this trip that Owen has a very real and severe fear of pine cones. I learned this when after rushing down to the river to save Bria's life (that didn't need saving after all, Kort just mistook the screams coming from her husband and daughter as they were playing in the creek) and Owen started crying and refused to walk over a bunch of pine cones that were covering the ground in between him and the water. He was seriously terrified. What a quirky kid!

Other than that, the kids played, wandered, cried (I'm not gonna lie, there were many tantrums), we hung out around the fire and had a great time. Even though I was hot and tired I still had a lot of fun. There's just something about camping!