Laverne surely was fun

After we got home from Ashland and the 4th of July festivities, we were anxious to try out our new trailer. My Uncle Clayton gave us his travel trailer (which is desperate for a good washing). Well, it was technically the business' travel trailer, but he officially signed the title over to us, so now it's ours, or STILL the business', officially! We took off Sunday night for Laverne Park, which is about a half hour from our house, for some camping next to the river.

Talea's really into horses now and cowgirling, so we got her a cute pair of boots the other day (good thing Kiersa will get to wear them someday also to justify the price), and even though Talea's into all things pink right now, she hasn't forgotten her cammo roots. She immediately fell in love with the pink cammo boots! They came in handy for camping!


Hyrum went to work Monday morning, so I had the day to myself with the kids, which feels weird when you're camping. It was fun, but I am WAY too addicted to Hyrum, so I found myself missing him really bad and constantly checking the time to see when he might be coming back. There's a playground by the campground, so we played there for a little bit.



Kiersa spent her time at the playground in the stroller, but she enjoyed watching the kids play.





We found someones leftover water balloons, so I introduced the kids to the joys of water balloon fights. Tilly was a good shot and hit Hyatt square in the face, but Hyatt and I didn't hit anyone. I was the worst in high school! (My mom always brags she was the best in high school at whatever thing...basketball, running, etc) The kids got new swimsuits this year so they can be better protected from the sun, but I couldn't find any girl shorts to go with Tilly's top. She likes the ruffle anyway.


We spent the bulk of our day at the river collecting "things". We caught 10 different items: newt, crawdad, tadpole, guppy, water skipper, mosquito larvae, spinning water beetle, caddisfly larvae, frog eggs and a worm (probably drowning).


I swear, playing with Talea takes me back to my childhood playing with Daisha, because Talea is so into every kind of creepy crawly and has no fear of bugs, which is exactly how Daisha was. Tilly's favorite creatures were the water snails and the caddisfly larvae (I always called them periwinkles). I can hold them by the shell, but I'm always afraid to let them crawl on me because they look so prehistoric. Talea had no fear. She took them back to our camp and waited impatiently for them to pop their heads out of the shells to crawl around. If you're not creeped out by bugs, click on the picture to see them bigger.


Here's what they look like up close as a larvae, and as a fly.


Oh, funny side note. Talea found a Daddy Long Legs (which are actually NOT spiders...weird) under our trampoline the other day, and she pulled all its legs off so it had to crawl along using its mouth parts. Such a young Daisha thing to do!!!! Talea will have Daisha's karmic insect revenge nightmare also, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I got the kids to do a little swimming in the water, though I could only convince them to float, not swim, because the water was too cold for Hyatt to feel like swimming, and Talea has always hated swimming.


I dipped Kiersa in the water, much to her dread, so she decided it would be safer to just fall asleep in the stroller so I couldn't repeat the water nightmare.

Going, going, gone.

Then she suddenly popped her eyes open and looked at me as though to say, "Don't even think about it". And then she was gone again.


Just after we got back to camp from the swimming area, Hyrum got back, so we had dinner, played some badminton, played at the playground again, cooked a few smores, and went to bed. The next morning, I decided I didn't want to spend another day without Hyrum because I'd be pretty bored since we did everything there was to do in the first day, and I miss camping without him, so we packed up in a matter of minutes (I love having a trailer!), and went back home, though we had to stop by his work first, and ended up getting stuck there for a couple of hours in all of our camping-grubby glory. I swear, Hyrum's employees see me scummed more than they see me done up. It doesn't bother Hyrum though, so I don't worry about it too much.