Teller Camping Trip 2012

A few weeks ago we went on a family campout with a good chunk of the Teller Family.  Here is an image of our very tightly packed van from the front passenger seat.  BARELY fit everything, but Ammon, through his Official Tetris Training was able to wedge everything just right!

I don't mind camping with the Teller family cuz they are uber prepared with a giant canopy, cooking stove and utensils, and we don't have to worry about much except our bare essentials.

This year, since Sasha wasn't walking terribly well, I inspired Ammon to build this super-friggin awesome outdoor playpen for the kids.  It's 9 foot by 6 foot and kept Sasha content during most of the week (yep, we went up Monday, came home Friday), and gave us a clean place to keep all the toys.  It's not that I cared about Sasha getting dirty as much as her always falling down, eating who-knows-what-and constantly wandering off.  This playpen was a huge success... so much so we're thinking of marketing it!!!

Ammon also built our community toilet.  Only cost about $30 to make (compared to $90 for other portable, reusable toilets).  Just dig a deep hole, line it with a bottomless trash bag and surround with some type of privacy cover. In this case we had a bottomless tent.  It would have worked great except by the end of the week it had become the ultimate fly breeding ground (in spite of moving it halfway thru the week).  We put up sticky fly strips but they would get coated within hours and then often get stuck to our hair... When we left Friday there must have been hundreds lining the ceiling of the tent.  YUCK!

We also had a community hammock.

 Overall it was a successful trip (i don't know if I personally can say "fun" per se).  The only major complaint was that it rained a LOT, thankfully between the canopy and a bunch of tarps we stayed pretty dry, but it just made us feel a little claustrophobic after four or five hours.

 Another damper was when Ammon cut his finger while sharpening an axe the second day.  He got four stitches at the Payson hospital, but was a trooper the rest of the week!!

One of my biggest fears (because of our first family campout) was that the kids would not sleep well.  However, they went to bed like troopers, feel asleep well and stayed asleep until 6ish every morning.  Even the last night which had pounding rain didn't seem to bother them.  Ammon and I had bought some great cots so that even I slept well!!

Of course Kaleb had a great time.  He followed the boundaries pretty well and even had an emergency whistle in case he 'got lost.'  The hardest thing for him was going to the bathroom in the bottomless pit of a toilet that didn't flush and was constantly swarmed by flies... but who could blame him?!

I loved watching his imagination emerge.  Here he is in a spontaneous SHOVE-YOUR-FACE-INTO--TREE-AND-COUNT moment... I assume he wanted to play hide and seek with me, but well, there was no place to hide.

He also loved to help out the men whenever possible.  Here they are digging the toilet hole. 

 Occasionally Kaleb got a little bored, so he had to just kill time doing whatever... like playing with Blokus tiles. 

 

He was REALLY good at cowboy golf... much better than me, even at his young age.

   Gramma and Tashina bought a few kids games for Kaleb, and he loved them... but so did everybody else.  My favorite part was when they were playing a "try to get rid of your pieces" type game, and Kaleb kept getting more and more, so everybody played like he was doing a great job.. after a few rounds he said, "I'm always winning this game."

 

 

They also brought a bug-catching net for him to explore with and by the end of the week, he got really good at catching critters.

 OH MAN, I LOVE THIS PICTURE!  WHAT A CUTIE!!!  Anyway, there's a little inch-worm on the right side of the his stick. 

Here is one of his prize grasshoppers, caught by the net.  Daddy told him to kiss it... thankfully he didn't. 

 Roasting marshmallows was one of Kaleb's favorite parts!

And the s'mores were SOOO good with the giant mallows!

 

By the end of the week it was obvious the lesser quantity of sleep was taking it's toll, and this little glare was a popular expression  on his young face.

As we were packing the van to leave, Kaleb took a well-needed little nap

As for Sasha, she did spend quite a bit of awake-time in the huge play pen, but enjoyed most of it.  We had to watch her more and more closely by the end because she would find new and better ways to get into trouble, like climbing onto the toy bucket to get out or grabbing someones water cup and dumping it all over.

 We did let her walk around in the great outdoors at least once a day.  At first, she just stood there,but once she saw Kaleb and the dog running around she couldn't help herself.  She didn't mind falling as long as there was someone else there to motivate her to get up again!

 Grandpa liked to take long walks up and down the trails and a few times he took our kids. 

 I think Sasha's favorite moment was when Daddy bundled her up in his coat.  It had been so rainy and cold that afternoon she had a blast being warm and snuggled!  Then she would do little head-popping turtle motions that made us all love it too!

 And she also liked the roasted mallows! SOOOO Sticky!

 I love this shot of Sasha and Kaleb in their chairs by the fire early one morning. 

 

Stinking cute little camper!!

All bundled for bed!!

 Since there was a little cafe at Clint's Well, near where we camped, Ammon and I had a little lunch date.  The food was GREAT!! and it was fun to actually spend time together (since we really hadn't the first few days.)

 Overall, I didn't have a fantastic week, but since everyone else had a pretty dad-gum good time, I will willingly admit this campout was a huge success!