Camping with our friends at John Bryan

Mel and I singing around the fire while she played the guitar. Both Jay and Mel play, so it was fun to watch them play and sing together.

The kids enjoyed the music also. This was Thursday night, the first night there, it was just the Urlings the Talbots and us. We enjoyed hanging with them and staying up late playing cards until we were slap happy. Except the husbands focused most of their attention on the crazy racoons that kept coming up to us. They enjoyed throwing rocks at them and shaking them down from trees.

They all loved harassing Evie in the pack and play.

Peter put up a hammock and we all enjoyed taking our turn relaxing on it, even the kids had their turn.


Porter liked to harass Evie the most. I think he was just trying to play with her by grabbing her face, I do not know why she didn't like that.

Sherrida made us a big breakfast Friday morning, it was so good.


Sherrida made some huge pancakes, but the guys had no trouble downing a couple of those babies.



Friday we got up and decided to go hiking first, so we hiked part of the river, it was beautiful. We tried to set up our cameras to get a shot of the whole group, but Mel didn't quite make it back for the photo.

Finally we got everyone in place at the right time.

At the end of our hike we took a break and through rocks in the water.
Climbing through the cave that is off to the side of the trail.


Friday afternoon we decided to go Rock climbing. This is Peter climbing for the first time, he was a natural.

We added people on as the day went on, it started out just being the Younkins, Talbots, Millers, and Urlings. But by the end of the day we had the Hayslips, Mays, Bassetts, and Camerons join us, it was tuns of fun.

We got everyone to climb, it was fun to cheer each other on as people climbed up the cliff. Everyone did so well.


Even the kids got to climb, this is Brooklyn, our little tom boy, she loves this stuff.

She is a natural.

Maddie found the guts to do it also and i was so proud of her, she is normally so nervous with this stuff but she kept right up with her sister.




Saturday we packed up camp and then decided to spend the day hiking down to the river and play in it, it felt so good. Andy and Jay were pretty tired this day because they stayed up until 3am, making a raccoon trap so that they could catch and kill one of those horrible raccoons who kept us up the first night by fighting and dragging our cooler into the woods.

Sherrida and I decided to go for a little swim, so we went on our tummys down the whole river until we hit a dam. It was so nice just to sail down that river, it felt so good. It was also nice not to be able to hear or see our children for a little while.


Uncle Clint came down Saturday and decided to come hiking with us while he was down visiting his girls. It was so fun to have them there.




Maddie is always frolicking where ever she goes, it cracks me up, she is going to be our dancer.

My beautiful girls having the time of their lives, they did so well camping, they love it just as much as we do.




Andy and Clint found this huge snake as we were going to our cars to leave and once again he decides to take a picture instead of running, that crazy man.

Stake High Adventure on the Appalachian Trail

This was Andy's group for the Westland Ward boys. There is Kenneth, Justin, and Lance. Danny and Andy were the leaders.

Andy got this close to a rattle snake, i think he is nuts for trying to take a picture of it instead of screaming and running away like i would have done.


They slowly accumulated more boys in there group as leaders went home for various reasons. Some guys had blisters, some got twisted joints, and one guy went home because he got too dehydrated and almost died, now doesn't that sound like a fun hike.

Doesn't Andy look Hot in this picture. This is Andy in his element all the way. He looks at home there.

Andy and Kenneth have a love hate relationship, i think it is more love though, despite what you may hear. They are soaked in this picture and it is because they were poured on for a couple days. It got so bad they were hiking through water up to their ankles.

These are the kind of blisters everyone suffered from, except for Andy, Kenneth and Lance. Kenneth must just have crazy strong skin because he bought boots at Wal-mart the day before the hike. Lucky boy.


By the end of the hike only 4 out of the 9 leaders were even there.

That is a sweet picture of Lance, this picture might freak his mother out though.

These are the boys chilin' on the cliffs waiting to watch the sunset.

This is why they call them the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are beautiful.

This is how close they got to the wildlife up there, Andy even got some film of a bear cub and his mom.

That is one studly man right there.

This Westland Ward were the only complete group to all make it to the end. They are awesome, but very wet and stinky.

They all became really close on this trip as you can see, and some of the boys picked up drinking, Andy is such a good influence. JK moms

They were able to have one good meal the very last day. Steaks were heaven sent after eating mountain house meals and oatmeal all week.

Maddie is Potty Trained!!!!

Maddie was successfully potty trained in just a couple days. She is our little blessing. It happened just in time too, right as we ran out of money for diapers. YEA!! And yes that is the back of Maddie's throat that you can see, she has a huge mouth.