GIrls and Boys

Ainsley and Emmie made rock pets one day when they got bored.

Owen and is friend left me this....

 

Gilgrunt

Owen has a fish. He was given to Owen last year for his birthday. I am going to declare that Gilgrunt and Owen have the same birthday. I'm also going to declare that Gilgrunt is going to turn 1 on Owen's birthday.Mostly because I have no idea how to tell how old a fish is. It's quite amazing that our finned friend has lived this long. Hopefully he is with us to celebrate next year too.

Meeting Mae

While John drove the kids home to unpack, mow the lawn, and do laundry, I headed off to Provo for  a little relaxation.  I spent Friday night through Sunday only slightly caring for babies that weren't my own.  Being and aunt is wonderful!  And my children weren't there demanding things of me so I just got to rest, and eat, and hold babies.  I loved it!  These babies are about 2 1/2 months apart.  It's amazing how even a 2 month old can suddenly look huge when put next to a teeny tiny newborn. 

I worked a little while I was there and went and picked apricots with Cy on Saturday afternoon.  And since I have a wonderful  husband who took care of all of the post vacation crazy for me, I spent my first day home from vacation making jam.  Perfect.

Dinger Family Reunion 2014

We haven't been together with the entire Dinger clan since Ainsley was two. We've seen everyone in that space of time, but we haven't all been in the same room at the same time for nearly a decade.  So get ready for some picture overload. Because such a rare occurrence deserves much pictorial documentation.  So it's a good thing John was in charge of taking pictures!  Which is also sad because he is in none of the pictures.  We left on the morning of the 14th and took the scenic rout to Island park.  Which meant we got to drive by this beautiful field and go see Mesa Falls.  We also met up with the majority of  John's family there.  (All buy Dan and David's families.)

 

 

We rented two big cabins to fit us all in an had a great time all week.  My kids were in cousin heaven.  Especially Owen who never has boy cousins to play with.  He played and played all week long.  And if we were ever not playing with cousins because we were in the car or something my kids were asking when we would be with cousins again.

We spent Tuesday in Yellowstone.  Honestly it was a bit of a zoo and we spent a lot of time waiting (in matching outfits.)

 But we still got to see some cool things.  And quite honestly, we were just happy to be there with family so it didn't really matter what we got to see.  Although Owen looks purely tortured. 

We made it up to Mammoth canyon for my family's first time ever.  It was gorgeous.  But a looong drive.

We spotted a bear on our drive though....if you look hard enough you can spot his back.  I much prefer viewing bears at a far distance and not in my own campsite. 

On Wednesday we visited Johnny Sacks cabin and Big Springs.  We were a bit of a crowd where ever we went.  Just a bit though.

I love that area, it is just so peaceful an calm.

That afternoon John's dad rented us some rafts and we floated down the river.  I use the term float loosely however since we too much carrying our raft and paddling for it to truly be floating. I thought it was awesome.  Probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.  I wish we would have had a camera with us...although it would have definitely been soaked and pictures ruined anyways.   We spent our day with James and Shelly and their family and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure they enjoyed it as much as we did since we taught their children lots of new fun words.  You know, the kinds of words you want your kids to know and say, like crotch. We had leaches, laughing, crying children, and people even falling.  It was a blast.

 

Thursday (Goob's birthday!) we ventured into Yellowstone again with no real plans of staying together as a group.  And somehow we all stayed together as a group most of the day.  A very large group! I'm sure we were the envy of all visitors of Yellowstone.

Thursday night we grabbed some pizza in West Yellowstone an devoured it because we were starving.  And then we headed back to the cabins for Melanie's delicious birthday cupcakes.  We celebrated the beginning of Goob's 30th year with class and style.

Friday we packed up the cabins, cleaned up our mess, and all headed home. Except for me.  I went to Salt Lake with John's parents and Goob and Quin to go visit Syd and Mae (oh, and Cy).

It was really such a great family get together.  I loved getting to know nieces and nephews that I rarely see and that my kids got to form friendships with their extended family.  I was actually sad to leave.  Hopefully there will be more Dinger family gatherings in the future!

The Maiden Voyage

We took the trailer out for its maiden voyage last weekend.  (Although technically John took it to father and son's but I don't count that because I wasn't there.)  The week was filled with ups and downs and very few pictures because we couldn't find our camera. We found it when we got home.  But I did take my phone on one of our hikes so we have exactly 5 pictures to commemorate the event.  That's right, 5.

I got some real beauties didn't I? And now I will proceed to tell you of the ups and downs of our trip.  And there were many.

Down:  We had to put air bags on the back tires of our van to pull the trailer properly.  We were loaded and ready to go and realized that the airbags weren't holding air.  So the first stop on our trip was to commercial tire. Where John spent the next 3 hours with Clark and the boys and I headed up to get a campsite with Alison and the girls. 

Up:  Once fixed the van pulled the trailer just fin. It didn't even struggle on the big hills.

Down:  Due to disagreements over where the different trailers should be parked, we ended up parking our trailer on a bumpy grassy area.  The trailer rolled off the block twice and one of the stabilizer legs broke.  We were off to a great start.

Up:  Clark is super handy and fixed the stabilizer.  Crisis averted.

Down: Rain. Off and on for our first two days.  I do not enjoy camping in the rain.  It involved a serious lack of socks for my children. Constant wet feet, never enough sun to dry everything out.

Up:  We were less than a quarter mile from a huge hot springs, so although it was raining, we hung out in the nice warm water and enjoyed being wet.

Down: Complete and utter Hurricane-like down pour. I was honestly surprised we stayed dry because it was raining so hard.  I could touch water when I touched the canvas and pillows that touched the sides got wet.

Up:  The trailer survived the downpour without any leaking.  No drips.  And we weren't in a tent.  We would have been soaked! 

Down:  The heater broke.  Upon much inspection and attempts to fix it, by the second night the igniter on the heater was declared officially dead.  We froze.  I hadn't packed many extra blankets due to the excitement of finally having a heater.  Lesson learned.

Up: The rain stopped by Saturday morning and by lunch time we were completely dried out.

Up:  We hiked up to an old lookout from the 1930's that is still manned.  It was interesting talking to the deputy on duty.  Sounds like a horribly boring job sitting alone at the top of a mountain looking for fire and what not but still cool at the same time.

Up:  Smore's, woof 'ems, dutch oven, foil dinners, and all sorts of other yummy camp food. 

Up:  Kids playing constantly with minimal fighting.  Rare these days.  And honestly, that's most of the reason I camp.  Just to have my kids outdoors and away from electronic overload.

Up:  Syd had her baby while we were camping.  3 weeks early!  I found out when we got service on our way back into town.  Doesn't really fit with this post but I'll stick it in anyways.  And she's blessing her baby over the weekend of our next scheduled camping trip.....not sure if that's good or bad :)

I'd say in the end that the ups out weighed the downs. 
And now we know to fix the heater before we head out again. 
Which sadly won't be until September. 
How did our summer get so packed that we don't have time to camp more!

Princess Camp

Ainsley and Bria put on a princess camp in order to make some money this summer.  They spent weeks planning, making crafts, making and delivering flyers, and gathering supplies. Which, in case you were wondering, means that their mothers were also spending weeks doing the exact same things.  They had their first week of princess camp the beginning of June at our house for the little girls in our neighborhood and they will hold a second session next week at Bria's house for little girls in her neighborhood.

We felt well prepared the first day.  And we all quickly learned that we had our work cut out for us.  The girls did the majority of the work but I was still worn out from it all.  Their camp lasted for 5 days, and for 2 hours a day. Each day featured a different princess with snacks and activities to go along with the themes.  They made glass slippers, painted Olaf, sang songs, read stories, played in the water, ate snow cones, decorated crowns, had a photo booth, made and decorated sugar cookies, made fruit kabob wands, and did a million other things. 

We had 7 girls at our house and I was impressed with how well it all went.  Some days went better than others, but overall it was a success.  The girls all seemed happy.  Their parents all seemed happy.  Ains and Bria each made $58 after paying for their supplies.  My house was sufficiently dirty and we were all sufficiently tired by the end of the week.  Now on to round two!!!