Bayles Family Camping Trip - Parowan, UT

We recently returned back from our camping trip to Parowan. We stopped off first at Great Grandma's house in St. George. Uncle Wes came over for a visit on Sunday night.

The kids were helping Grandma Great clean up some peaches that had fallen to the ground. Luckily, they were pretty well-behaved and didn't embarrass us too badly in front of Grandma Great. She does her best to baby proof but Ryan DID manage to break a sentimental music box before we left. Hopefully Grandpa can fix it.
The next day we headed off to Parowan and met up with Denton and Joanne. While we waited we stopped off at a little park and Grandpa pushed them on the swings. I promise we didn't saturate this photo - the grass just came out that green.
We found a fabulous camping spot at Yankee Meadows campground and set up camp. Drex and Rosalee brought a tent trailer and we set up a HUGE tarp as a shade and rain canopy. The guys had to use like 100 ropes to keep it up and stable and huge poles to keep it from sagging too much with the weight of rain, but it turned out fabulous.

We ended up using Denton and Joanne's 9 man tent instead of our dinky little 4 man (which had no chance of fitting our air mattress plus Ryan's twin air mattress and a pack n play for Katie). Unfortunately, we had a pretty heavy thunderstorm one night which caused some significant leaking in the tent. The heaviest leak occurred right over my face. I ended up sleeping completely underneath the sleeping bag praying that the water wouldn't soak through and freeze me to death during the night. All was well in the morning.

Katie sure slept horribly and kept me up for about 2 hours in the middle of the night the first night. (It also kept Uncle Todd up in the tent next to ours.) I still don't really know what her problem was, but at least she snapped out of it once we got home.

After that wet night we decided to set up our little tent and then managed to sort of connect the two tents together. It left us with a large covered area, with one nice reliable dry part to sleep in. We could keep Katie's playpen in an area in the tent that didn't get leaked on and Ryan could fit near us if it started to get wet. Too bad we didn't think to get a picture.

We hiked one day, went into Parowan another day and looked at the museum and a few homes that are connected to the Bayles family. Included was the one that Drex's father built that they lived in during his early childhood. One of the days the boys went out shooting targets (no animals or people were harmed) and we also went for a drive up to Cedar Breaks which I HIGHLY recommend.

We were awful about getting camping pictures, but here are a few that we took the last day or two.

Grandpa and the kids filling up the water container.
Ryan loved to go out and hide in the woods. Grandpa showed him how to sneak up on our campsite and "scare" us. Needless to say, that got old after a while. He and Derek would also take the shovels and go dig holes which he got a big kick out of (no, not for THAT reason - just to show Ryan a good use for the shovel that he was obsessively carrying around). That being said, he also quite enjoyed using the woods as his bathroom. It took a few days to convince him that we don't use our backyard as a bathroom when we got home.

While we were looking out in the woods for good wood to make a "shelter" Katie tripped on a log and fell on her hands. Derek picked her up but she kept crying and whined about how much her arm hurt. Something was obviously not right for her so we took her back into Parowan to see a doctor and get an x-ray. After about 3 hours we got in just to find out that she had "nursemaid's elbow" which meant that it was partially dislocated. The doctor quickly popped it back into place and she was good as new. I was mildly annoyed because Gina had JUST taught me how to put a nursemaid's elbow back into place less than 2 weeks earlier. If I wasn't concerned about a broken wrist I might've actually tried it myself - though the idea didn't occur to me until about 10 minutes before the doctor came into the examination room. Anyway, all was just perfect for her after that. We figure it probably happened because of the way Derek picked her up after the fall. At least we know how to fix it if it happens again.

Ryan saw me hiding in a bush and decided that we should play hide and seek. This was Katie's turn to count.

These are a million pictures from Cedar Breaks which was too pretty NOT to photograph a million times over. It was raining (it pretty much rained the whole time) so that's why we're all huddled under our jackets and making wincing faces. Derek is the only one not present here (as he is taking the picture.)
Enjoy the view.



All the rain made for some fabulous rainbows. I was determined to get a good rainbow picture. These next two I loved because we were so close. We were actually right there by the end of the rainbow.

Never saw the pot of gold.

We went to the peak of Brian Head and saw this view of Cedar Breaks. We could also see Bryce Canyon and supposedly Arizona and Nevada.
I put Katie's hair up like this and it was an ingenius idea if I do say so myself. It stayed up and out of her face for like 4 days.

The campground hosts had a couple of hummingbird feeders up by their trailer. On the last day they invited us over to watch the hummingbirds and boy was that a treat. There were probably about 12 hummingbirds around and we would put our hands up on the feeders and just wait. They'd fly over and their wings made the air move just like a fan would. I had no idea that they change colors to show dominance but it was so interesting to watch. The bird would look like this and then it would fly up to another hummingbird who was coming up to its feeder and then all of a sudden you'd see that his throat was bright red.

If we were patient enough they'd land on our fingers while feeding - such a neat feeling.

Here's the trouble with trying to photograph two kids at once. Here's a fine picture of Katie - bad of Ryan.
Now we've got a cute Ryan face, but Katie isn't looking at the camera.
Thank goodness for Photoshop!

Katie's First Day in Nursery

No, this is not a picture of her IN nursery, just one of her on her first day.

Of course I expected it to take about 3 months to get her comfortable in there, considering her extreme shyness. She also is not familiar with any of the teachers in there AND a few of them are men (which seems to make her a little more nervous sometimes.) Derek and I teach the 5 year olds in Primary and he cannot be in there alone with the kids (church policy) so the job of transitioning Katie to nursery fell on Derek.

He reports that it was a success for her. He was in there with her for a little while and then would tell her that he was going to leave and get a drink and would be back. He came back a few minutes later and she was just fine while he was gone. He left to go to Priesthood opening exercises. She was fine when he came back. He showed up in our primary class for short intervals and went back in to check on her. She was doing just fine. Apparently it was only snack time that got her nervous enough to cry (she seemed to be a little uncomfortable with so many people all around the table). I was VERY surprised that Derek was able to leave at all and quite happy with her increasing ability to cope with new situations.

She told me afterwards that she liked it and I'm very happy with her teachers. All in all, a great success. Now I can't wait for next week!

Be patient, be patient, don't be in such a hurry,
When you get impatient, you only start to worry,
Remember, remember, that God is patient too,
And think of all the times when others had to wait for YOU.

Listen, I have a "to do" list longer than my arm.

I'm sick.
If someone came into my house they'd call the police and report that my place had been ransacked.
I have about 6 loads of laundry all sitting on my couch waiting to be folded.
My children want some attention from me.
I FINALLY have a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just begging to be read.
I have 3 blog entries that need to be completed... but that will have to wait.

Remember, I'm SICK!

A Fun New Climber

If you missed it - there is actually a new post below with tons of pictures. The first picture may have looked too familiar to clue you in on the new post. ;)

Beach Day with the Grandparents

Yes, I realize it's been about a month since Grandma and Grandpa B. were here. Still, we had SUCH a great time and some fun pictures, so I am blogging about it, albeit a bit late.

Here's another one of our beach baby.

We had some lunch when we first got there (less sand in the food that way) and we attracted a very brave squirrel.
This one seemed hilarious to me.
He got so stinkin close that we finally had to chase him away so the kids wouldn't end up with rabies.
Here's Grandma and Grandpa - Grandpa is well protected from the sun.
Denton and Ryan making sand castles.
Rachelle and Evie were enjoying the water. Evie was a little fish, she wasn't nervous at all.

Grandpa joined in on the sand castle making and he and Denton made this fabulous fort for Ryan to drive his construction trucks on.

After we unburied the kids Ryan decided to bury Grandpa.
What can I say, he loves to be buried.
Ryan is actually standing on Drex's chest in this picture. As if the weight of the sand wasn't heavy enough.

(please excuse bikini babe in the picture - I hadn't noticed until just now)

Excavating around Grandpa's head.

We made Drex into a bikini babe.

Tide was rising.

Derek and Denton starting throwing the frisbee around. I think they were trying to get each other soaked.

Where did that thing go?
When we were all finished we took a quick detour over to the Newport Beach Temple. I think it was Ryan's first time seeing it so I took a picture of him. Great cheesy face boy.
Now that wasn't too difficult. I ought to blog more often.

Sorry Jodie that I didn't include any pictures of Joanne. I just wouldn't want anyone else posting pregnant pictures of ME on their blog. I'll leave that up to her. ;)

Adventures at Gina's House

Gina's grass hadn't been mowed yet (they've been on vacation since a few days after they moved in.) Ryan took advantage and we saw him being a lion and creeping through the tall grass.

Today we filled up the kiddie pool and put the slide in it. Yeah, he had a blast. These aren't goggles, they are his sunglasses. "Mom, the sun is shining me."

Ryan has definitely been overstimulated with the new toys at Grandma Cookies' house, Grandma Bayles' house, AND Gina's house. He'll be bored to death when we get home, but at least we'll get to see DAD again!

Which Way to the Beach?

Grandma Cookies' House!

Of course we are having a fabulously fun time at Grandma Cookies' house. While she is gone to work in the mornings we just play, play, play, play, play. These kiddos spend most of the time splashing around in the water table and jumping on and around the castle slide. The weather has even been awesome since it's monsoon season - that gets me all nostalgic if you know what I mean Derek.

Anyway, enjoy some pictures of these cute kids. They speak for themselves.

And no - Katie's hair ISN'T always all done up. :)

Very common scowl by Katie. She is all sunshine isn't she? :)

Yeah, he was eating dirt. We're laid back.