HAPPY CAMPING

We just got back from camping in the Teton National Forest!! What a beautiful part of the country!! It is breathtaking there and we were all in awe at the massive mountain range. You would think living in Utah with mountains all around me I wouldn't be very impressed, I hope the pictures do it justice it was an awesome weekend.
One might not be excited about the idea of "tent" camping with 14 kids under the age of 8 three of them were under 3 months!, but it was so much fun, don't get me wrong we did have our share of drama and excitement. We were even missing 10 people the Winlands and their kids, Emily's husband Brian and Brian's mom were unable to make it. All things considering they were all troopers!

We went up Thursday night and stayed in Jackson while Brian did some work and then went up to the camp site. Brian's family joined us on Friday. We were able to see a mama moose and baby tons of elk, deer and antelope lots of Buffalo and some of us saw a Grizzly Bear!! We went into Jackson on Friday evening and watched a gun shoot out and had some dinner! Our first night was pretty uneventful, we were all still a little clean and went to bed after a nice camp fire and marshmallows. Poor Lilly got sick in the middle of the night and threw up in her sleeping bag and just missed her brothers face!! Kudos to Kristi for not packing up and leaving!! We woke up bright and early and ate yummy eggs in a bag thanks Aunt Kristi! We all got ready and walked down to the lake to let the kids check it out and take pictures! Preslie (2 1/2yrs) had to get things exciting and saw uncle Tyler knee deep in water, she must of thought that it looked fun and walked right out there in all of here clothes. She did pretty good keeping her head out of water until her Dad pulled her out by her foot!! ( it was the closest body part to grab her from he didn't intentionally pull her under!!) She was not very pleased the water was very cold!!

We drove over to Jenny lake to hike around and the kids played in the water (Preslie stayed at camp with the moms and babies) While we were gone I guess the camp ranger came to our site and asked Em and Jen to put the water cooler and dutch ovens away because even if there isn't any food out the bears can still smell it on the items so they did. We came back and ate brats and chips Thanks Sunee and Ty!! We were hungry.
After messing around a bit we went swimming in the lake Lilly jumped right in and went under water!! Brave girl it took your breath away it was so cold. Uncle Trent was in the water but got out to help some kids with their fishing poles. He forgot he pulled his pant up so they wouldn't get wet. For the life of me I cannot get this pic to download. But there is one in the slide show this picture will be around for a very long time, I'm thinking it will make a great Christmas card!! Check out those white legs!!

There are too many pics to post and it is not loading them very fast so here is a slide show of all of our pics.

Our most exciting night was the last. After eating the best dutch oven dinner ever that Jeff and Jen made, we were all pretty tired and went to bed earlier than normal. It was warmer than the night before so we thought it would be a great night. Well about 1:00 I woke up to a lot of noise, people screaming down by the lake I sat and listened for a minute. By this time Brian had woke up we heard someone scream BEAR!! I asked Brian did they just yell bear? (remember the park ranger came over that day to ask us to put all the stuff in cars) He sat up and said yeah they said bear. Ty and Sunee were in a tent next to us and their dog was growling and they were awake. By this time there was really loud music and car alarms going off. So we sit there thinking they are trying to scare a bear away and the noise feels as if it was coming our way. I completely panicked and asked Brian what we should do. He hands me a gun and said stay here do you know how to shoot this? My response was NOOOOOO!!! So he said put the kids in the car just in case. I have never ran so fast. I was scared out of my mind. Everyone else was up by this time and when I say everyone I mean only our family!! Is everyone Else completely DEAF!! We hear some one yell go home and a very quiet sounding pop( like a gun) Brian and I decide to drive around to see if we can find out what is going on. We see a ranger truck speed out of the camp ground and not another living soul around. We drove near the lake and see about a dozen 20 somethings walking. Brian asked them if they were the ones yelling bear. They obviously were not American and said "bear what bear?" We went back to camp and all was very quiet so we went back to bed, still terrified!! We heard 4 more gunshots before we were able to go to sleep. We woke up the next morning still not knowing what happened but talking about all the excitement. A park security truck went by and we stopped and asked if there was a bear in camp last night. "No not a bear it was the Ukrainians, they were down by the lake partying all night and had all the rangers here. They caused quite a ruckus!" What Ukrainians who would have thought. There goes our bear theory. Rotten kids!!! What a memory we will be talking about our almost could have been bear encounter for years!!

We had so much fun, we hope to make it an annual trip. Thanks to all of Brians family for coming and making it so much fun!!
See ya next year!!