Camping in the Uintah's

We have become the little adventurers in the past couple of weeks.  It may not seem adventurous to some, but for us, a family with three young kids, this is crazy.  I have sworn off camping because I hate getting up in the middle of the night to stagger to the outhouse while searching for wild animals with my flash light.  I also hate lying awake for hours listening to cache snore and dealing with children that talk in their sleep and have go to the bathroom (again staggering to the outhouse, but this time with a child in tow).  But because of my husband's and children's plea's for a camping trip I caved and agreed to drive to the Uinta's for ONE night in the great outdoors.  It was much more fun than I thought.  We cooked hot dogs wrapped in rhodes roll dough (delicious), roasted marshmallows with Rolo's in the middle, and made smores with Nutella.   We also hiked (walked) around Butterfly lake, pitched a tent, explored a few meadows, and caught a fish.  Okay, I exaggerate a little on catching a fish.  I speared out of the lake a freshly dead trout.  I saw it floating and it didn't have gross flies flying around it and looked actually really good.  I suck stick in its mouth and pulled it out.  The kids had fun looking at it and then we gave it to some fisherman.  They actually decided to keep it-bleh.  The Uintah's are so beautiful and we had some good ole family bonding time.  I will say though, I didn't sleep AT ALL, and I did stagger to the bathroom, and eventually crying at 6:00 am because I was so tired.  All is good though, and I would possibly do it again, I just wish I was a heavier sleeper.
(please forgive these phone pictures. forgot the camera)

 Butterfly Lake

 Pigs in a blanket-campfire style

 itchy eyes+soot on hands=racoon eyes

 Provo falls

OH! I almost forgot to write about the faith promoting experience we had.  When we arrived in the uintah's we were looking for Trial or Washington lakes.  We ended up driving past the turn off to those two lakes and spent an hour trying to find them.  Once we turned around a found them we searched out a camp host who told us all the camp spots were occupied. bummer.  We drove to the next lake and heard the same news.  We drove to 2 or 3 more and again they were all full.  We decided we would try one more and if it was full we would go home and try another weekend.  By this time it was 5pm, the kids were getting hungry and we had been driving around for about 2 hours.  We drove into butterfly lake and Asher and Eden said they were going to say a prayer.  After about 2 minutes a man waved us down and asked if we wanted his camp spot because he had been up into yellowstone for the past week and was heading back home to SLC. He explained how his original plan was  to stay one night and drive home in the morning, but he was so close and missed his dogs and wife that he made a last minute decision to drive straight to SLC without stopping.  Lucky for us we took his camp spot , which was great because the rest of the campground was full.  My kids were so excited that their prayers were answered and their Heavenly Father listened to them even for something so small.

A few things to catch up

* I started this post months ago, and forgot all about it.oops*

I trained for a half marathon and survived.  I started back in January and ran 3 or 4 days a week, the marathon was scheduled for April 28th.  So that gave me almost 4 months to train.  I did so good and learned to love running, that is until I hit 10 miles.  After 10 miles I dreaded it.  I even stopped training as much, I only ran 2 times a week one short run and one long run.  My life at this time started to get really crazy too.  We were gearing up for moving and that seemed to occupy me more than I thought.  I guess I had some underlying stress that I wasn't recognizing.  The day of the HalfMary came.  I woke up and felt OK although very nervous to face the challenge ahead of me.  The furthest I had ran up to that point was only 12 miles, but I thought I would be okay because I felt like I could have done one more mile when I finished that run.

Let me fill you in on the day before the race......We ended up moving into our new house and there were so many bumps with the move. I slept only 3 hours that night in a new house with new sounds, not the greatest way to spend the night before a big run.  Carbing up?  I did a little, if you count 2 slices of cold Little Caesars pizza a good carb load.

Ok, sorry, back to the race.........I had a great friend that I ran with.  We started and were feeling good.  She felt better than me I am sure because she runs much faster than I do, but she was so sweet and committed to sticking with me (thanks Barb!)  Miles 3,4,5 came and went and we were doing pretty good.  We were staying hydrated at the water stops and we had downed our goo.  We were even a little under our (my) goal time.  Of course at that time I told my friend my goals were to not stop and stay under 12 minute miles, I was feeling good and thought these goals were totally reasonable.  I had ran 10 miles without stopping before (my 12 mile runs I had stopped for drink and potty breaks) I could totally do it again with adding 3 more miles.  7 miles passed still doing okay, but getting tired, I totally thought a Goo would pep me up.  8 miles came and I started to get doubts in my mind and mile 9 I broke down.  Tears started flowing and I had to stop and have a good cry. I actually had been near tears most of the morning, but figured it was from the excitement of the race (lame but I always get teary at races even if I am only watching them).  The stress of the move finally came out, maybe that's an excuse, but that is what I felt like it was.  The rest of the race was awful.  Every hill (and there was a lot of them) took all of my energy. I pretty much was running slower than if I was just walking.  I kept telling my friend to go on, to finish, but she wouldn't, which is good because I might have given up if it wasn't for her.  After about dying during those last 4 miles we made it through the finish line at 2 hours 46 minutes.  I didn't make either of my goals and I was so disappointed.  Would I do it again? Maybe.  But at least I gave it my best effort and I feel good about that.

Sunday pic

It's been a long time since I have posted a Sunday pic.  So for memory sake.....

Devouring the remainder of the brownie batter.  What more can a kid ask for?