Eeeeewwwww...worst kind of COVID mask...

Merril and I were in the car with Wade and Sheri and talking about masks. Merril thought it would be hilarious to walk into a store with a Ronald Reagan mask and see if he could get away with it. So he immediately bought one off Amazon. 

It arrived while he was gone and the kids and I opened the package. It smelled paint and plastic and we had to keep it in the garage overnight. 

I hate this thing. It's the worst. It's super creepy when anyone wears it and just as creepy lying on the floor, all deflated. 

I hope you're laughing Merril. 😖

Fat Man's Misery...

This is going to be a little picture heavy and I apologize. 😁 The adventure about to be told is the hike known as Fat Man's Misery or Skinny Girl's Paradise. Not really, I made that last part up. We went with Wade and Sheri Beatty and Jed and Nicole Stout. Nicole wanted to take Jed on the hike and asked for Wade and Merril's help. Jed went as a teenager and was always telling Nicole how neat it was.

We started at 7:00 a.m. by Checkerboard Mesa in Zion National Park.

We hiked through a canyon and over some sandstone.

Pockets started forming in the sandstone. They had water and tadpoles and frogs. We had a snack in one, without water.

Then we dropped into the slot canyon.

The slot canyon would open up and we'd hike in the flat for a bit. After a few minutes, the canyon would narrow again and we were back in the slots.

It was filled with several small rappels.  

Some had water and some had sand.

This spot had water in it and was pretty dark. Jed went through first and was a scary silhouette on the other side. If I had come around the corner and seen him, it could've been the start to a horror movie. He was creepy. 

There were some cool arches and neat corners.

One had a few small snakes! We didn't think they were poisonous but we let them be.

Then we got to the river. We had gone around 6 miles. We filtered water just before the water entered the river because it was so murky in the Virgin River. It had rained a few days before up in Overton and it was all washing down.

It looked like chocolate milk.

We all ended up with walking sticks because it was hard to walk up river without being able to see what was under the water. There was some quicksand/slimy mud along the banks of the river. Sometimes our feet would sink in quite a way and it was hard to pull it back out.

We were having a good time though!

The scenery was unreal!

Parts of the river hike looked like a jungle, not the desert southwest.

Luckily, there were some sandbars and we hiked on those as much as possible.

This canyon was our road towards the truck. This canyon was fed by a spring and the water ran clear. You can see where it meets the murky Virgin River water.

The canyon was even more like a jungle!

Just beautiful! 

I think Merril said this was his favorite part of the hike.

The canyon ended with 3 sheer walls straight up. We hiked up the least steep of all of them. It made me breathe hard at the end of a long day. This is the view from the top.

This is the marker for the edge of Zion National Park.

We are near the end!

We made it to the truck around 9:00 p.m. We had been hiking since 7:00 a.m. and it was an epic adventure, to say the least! Wade's backpacking app said we traveled 10 miles. 10 hard miles.

We all survived and now it was time for dinner!

We still had to drive on a dirt road for 45 minutes to get back by Coral Pink Sand Dunes, then the drive home. We got to Hurricane at around 10:30 p.m. and ate at Alfredo's Mexican Restaurant because it was one of the only places still open.

I woke up stiff the next morning but it was totally worth it. 😅 What an awesome day! I feel bad its name is so negative. Maybe it keeps people from hiking it. We didn't see a single person the whole day. It was beautiful and remote. I loved it!

Mitchell and Mercedes's Wedding!

Jo Anna's son, Mitchell, got married yesterday to Mercedes! The wedding was up at Jo Anna and Boyd's cabin in Duck Creek. Juliet was asked to be a flower girl and then walked back to hold Mercedes's train.

It was a beautiful little ceremony. Mitchell was an adorable husband up there and the whole thing made me shed some tears! 

There was perfect weather during the ceremony. It didn't last. 😔The rain started sprinkling on us during dinner. After a while, people were standing under trees to stay out of the rain. The reception was cut short because of the rain, which is a shame because Jo Anna had planned karaoke and people hanging out for a while. Oh well, we had fun while we were there and it was fun to see another nephew get married.

Jeannie's son, Michael, got married last month but I didn't take a single picture. He married Chaise and they are adorable. These two boys are the first of the cousins to get married. 

Are we robbing the place?

On Monday, Wal-Mart mandated masks be worn if you want to shop. I had thrown all our washable masks in the washing machine and Mikayla asked if we could go to the store so she could buy a doll with her own money. I agreed and then realized, we didn't have any masks, not a single one! So we grabbed some bandanas and hit the store like circa 1870s train robbers. 

COVID has made this the weirdest year ever.

Number 2 became number 1...

Maxine has been the oldest and tallest child for 17 3/4 years. Now, she's just the oldest because Jack finally surpassed her in height! She's not excited about it. 😖 

Maxine finds it annoying but said she's still going to perceive him as smaller than she is. Maxine, sorry that you'll no longer be the head honcho, the big kahuna, and the big sister. You'll just be the older sister. 💛

Two Cool Cows!

About 10 years ago, I got a book from the Scholastic book order that was $1. It was funny and had nice rhythm. It lasted a few years and all the pages fell out. I ended up throwing it away. About 3 months ago, I was saying something that reminded me of a passage. "Over the bluebells and hollyhocks, back to the kids on the mountaintop, for its grass to milk and milk to cheese and home by 7 o'clock." I could not for the life of me remember the title of the book. I tried Google searching the passage and nothing came up. I searched cow books in the Washington county library system and nothing sparked my memory. I let it go.

Then a week ago, I really wanted to read the book again. I tried googling the description: book cows travel to the moon and back. It immediately brought up my book! 

It's not in print anymore and there were some paperback copies but I was worried about the book falling apart just like it did the first time.

There was one used hardback copy on Amazon that used to be a library book. I decided to get it and now it's here ! ! 

Maxine and I at a blast reading it! I don't know if the other kids love it as much as we do but it was fun to finally figure it out!

Mikayla Swim team...

Mikayla wanted to join swim team this year. I was worried that they weren't even going to have swim team this year because of COVID but they went ahead. Mikayla went half the time and went to one little swim meet. She's in the middle in the navy suit.

Swim team pictures! Yay!

Mikayla said that she liked her swim teacher and swimming. She said that she really likes the meets because she could swim fast.

 

Campbell Grandkids Camp

This year, Grandma Campbell rebranded going to the cabin as "Grandkids Camp." There weren't very many adults because of different circumstances. Merril had to go drive truck for Grandpa so that he could be there and Jared was helping Matt load up their household in Bothell, WA. Camille and Emily dropped off their kids but couldn't stay. 

There was a fire by Veyo that made for some crazy smoke! Firefighters were able to put it out that evening.

Jody and Jim and Justin and Rachel were able to be there. Jody brought this HUGE movie screen! It was meant to be set up outside but it was too windy. We watched a movie in the great room.

There was a talent show.

Jack was allowed to bring in a bike for some tricks.

I lead some kids on a hike. Jack kept Abigail company and listened to her chatter on. It was pretty cute.

Grandpa came with, which was helpful!

Juliet's favorite thing about the cabin was hanging out with Caroline. She said the movie night was pretty fun too!

River rats...

There weren't any rats at the river but there was a dead bat! It floated past Mikayla and she didn't know what it was but was wary of it. As it got closer to me, I could tell it was a dead bat. Ew! Maxine and Jack had gone swimming with the Fagergrens and we wanted to play in the water as well but I didn't want to crash their party at the pool. We headed to the river by our house. The water was the perfect temperature! There was a chain and the kids kept playing a game with it, pretending they were floating away and the chain was saving them.

The water was down because of summer and it made the current less strong. It was good for swimming in.

Of course, there has to be a stick. Kids loves sticks. 

We were by ourselves in a little bit of summer paradise.