Fun in the Unitas

We had a wonderful trip to the Unitas two weeks ago. Sure it rained like crazy. Sure it got down to 29 degrees at night, but what could be funner? We made the climb up the mountain for Erin's family reunion at Moon Lake. Before that though, Kyle, Tommy and I had a little "reventure" (Kyle's word for adventure). We backpacked in to Aftan Lake (shown in wide angle) and camped over night.

We made our way up to the lake and stopped short of making it to the lake to set up camp... and not a moment too soon. It started raining as I was throwing the rain fly over our tent. The first hour of our tripped started in a tent taking pictures of each other and telling stories.

After the rain we were able to continue the rest of the way to Aftan. Kyle really enjoyed hanging out with everyone. Taylor, Eric, Paul, Newty, Jack (dog), Amy and Ethan were with us which made for a lot of fun.


I had to share this pic as it is one of the only times Tommy did not look doppy.

After an excellent time at Aftan, we drove to Moon Lake and met up with Noah, Erin and the family reunion. The Bros had a sweet moment together by the lake after being apart for a whole day. They both missed each other. After Kyle and I left to go backpacking Erin said that Noah grabbed a backpack, put two apple sauce packages and two spoons in and kept telling Erin "Go camping".


Us hiking around the lake, just before it started to rain (again).

Of course Noah had his cousins to play with too. Noah and Coleman sat around the campfire for hours swapping man stores and how to survive in the wild and still avoid diaper rash.

Kyle snaps a pic of Will in yet another moment of silliness.

Getting together at the Coggle events usually means a few things. 1. food (the dutch oven cook off rocked) 2. fun (everyone had a great time around the camp fire) and 3. NOISE (everyone likes to create packs and talk over each other).

We had a wonderful time, in spite of the weather. Night one we say was the most wild thunderstorm we have ever experienced. Thunder and lighting rattled off in long streaks seemingly with out a gap to take a breath, as we huddled in our tent praying we would not be fried. Night two the temp dropped to below freezing, but thanks to our lumber jack sleeping bags we did not feel even a slight chill (thanks ma).



After years of complaining about the imperfect process of making s'mores, Erin discovered chocolate covered graham crackers. We quickly found that this new invention revolutionizes the s'more building process. Observe:

{Step 1} Roast Marshmallow: Using a rock as a balance for your roasting stick, position your marshmallow at a distance at which the underside begins to turn gold and the turn until all sides are evenly golden.

{Step 2} Mush: Place the marshmallow between two chocolate covered graham crackers and mush.

{Step 3} Enjoy (Stopping to pose for self portrait mid-bite): Eat the entire thing as quickly as possible so you can have "s'more".

{Repeat}

Notice in this process we were able to eliminate the annoying steps of unwrapping chocolate bar, placing on graham cracker and trying to melt the chocolate bar. Brilliant!!!

As far as Tommy goes, he had a wonderful time. Camping is one of the few times we let him really act like a dog. He ran around free as a bird on a number of hikes and had a great time meeting new people. However there was one unfortunate incident where Tommy pooped out Jack (shown here). The two dogs got tangled up and I think they ended up in positions that neither enjoyed.

4th of July

Okay so this is a bit of a catch up post, but we had a wonderful 4th and I wanted to post about it. This year we opted to skip the parade thing in the morning and instead celebrated our independence by sleeping in and having a easy-going morning. We went to Erin's parents house for lunch where the boys had a wonderful time running around and all kinds of craziness.

Most importantly Kyle was able to reunite with Will. Whenever these two get a chance to see each other they are inseparable. The whole time we were at Erin's parents house these two boys ran around with each other and Noah tried to keep up with them.

Noah also got to meet up with Reagan. Point to your brain Reagan... very good.

Noah decided we were not doing a good enough job documenting the family get together, so he took matters into his own hands and stole the camera. Here is a selection of his 4th portfolio:

These last three were taken as Noah ran toward me, Will, Kyle and Coleman which is pretty impressive... I think

After we had our fill of lunch we headed to Murray Park where we met up with my parents and grandmother to enjoy an American feast (including patriotic cupcakes).

Handsome devil...

Fun with glow sticks.

This is actually a pic of a little known superhero "Atomic Grandma".

The fireworks started (not shown) and Erin and I had prepared for the worst with our boys. The week prior we saw fireworks in Taylorsville and both boys were not so impressed. Kyle had us plug his hears the whole time and Noah stuffed his face in Erin's armpit to hide.

Kyle had a repeat performance, but once Noah got past the initial shock he had a great time. He laid on my chest and the rest of the night was filled with "didyouseedat", "thatwasbigone", "wow" and "thatwasloud".

Last but not least: I am proud to be an American. Being able to raise my family in a free country is one of my sweetest blessings. Thank you to all you military service people, government leader (all the ones that aren't crooks or cheating on your wives, that's why "leader" isn't plural) and postal service people (one of the more highly undervalued arms of the federal government, but I thought I'd give you so props while I was at it).