Camping with the Hsiung's

       Paul has some pretty awesome co-workers that we have become decent friends with. One of our closest friends from Paul's office is Wei Hsiung and his wife Jessica. Last year we took them camping for one of their first times ever, (you don't really camp in Taiwan I guess). Last year it was just an over night trip. This year, we planned pretty far in advance, and spent almost 3 full days with them. We didn't travel too far from home, just up to Spruces campground just up the canyon from our house. But it was far enough away from society that we could relax, and just do nothing for a few days.
     The first day was hard for me. I wanted to be busy like I usually am, but I finally started to relax and actually had fun not having an agenda or things to do. Jace was a champ. He really liked leaving our camp spot, and exploring, and running into the road.
     Basically in summary, we spent three days enjoying nature, and getting to know the Hsuings better. We planned our trip accidentally perfectly around the meteor shower so we saw LOTS of them when we took the time to sit in our chairs and look up! The pictures will probably tell our story best!

Jace just chillin in his chair the first night when we were setting up camp. He spilled his water on the ground so he is making his uh-oh face. 

Now he is kind of smiling for us. He is so funny, when I ask him to smile and he pulls that face, he won't look at the camera. He looks away. I don't know why, but he does it EVERY time!

Life just got better because Jace has his toys! 

Its morning and Wei and Jessica are cooking us yummy Taiwanese omlettes. They were sooo good!!! Different that what you would normally put on an omlette, but yummy for sure!

Just bein a bunch of goobers in the morning.

We brought Jace's bumbo to use as a mini high chair for him to eat in. It actually worked quite well. When we had some messier meals, it was nice to be able to contain him for a little bit. Sometimes he got fussy and needed to be out and carry his tray around. That is what is happening in this picture. He just needed to walk around the campsite carrying all his food so he could eat in lots of different places and share with the chipmunks and squirrels. 

Showing his, I'm not getting into trouble and doing something I shouldn't face!

Wei and Jessica showing us their good morning faces!

Paul and Jace sitting by the fire. I think Jace is finishing off his breakfast with his Daddy.

We went on a walk around the west side of the campground. We wanted to scope out all of the campsites and see which ones were best so if we wanted to come back we knew where the best place to camp would be. We ended up decided we lucked out with the site we got, but found a few others that we wouldn't mind having.

We had spaghetti for dinner and Jace was in Heaven!!! He was filthy and made all sorts of faces. I had a hard time picking just one. The next few pictures are just some of Jaces many faces! 

We had spaghetti for dinner and it turned out fabulous! Can't you tell by their faces!! ;)

Wei just can't contain his excitement!! 

Just a couple of goofballs being silly at dinner time.

Auntie Jessica was showing Jace how to drum on his bucket. She even got chopsticks out and used them as drumsticks!! He loved it!!! 

Drumming by the light of the fire!

Jace is cookin his first mallow! He had fun holding the stick, but didn't really care much about the cooked mallow. He just wanted them straight from the bag! He also liked eating the graham crackers. 

Bonding at its best. Nothing like a camp fire, and some great friends.

This is probably the closest thing to a family picture we have, (thats not a selfie), since he had family pictures taken almost a year ago!

Getting ready for bed! Jace loved playing on our air mattress! He wasn't a huge fan of having to go to bed, but he was definitely a champ about it!

Brushing our teeth right before bed time!!  

Paul got up early and is cookin dutch oven breakfast for us! What an awesome guy! He even took Jace out of the tent with him so I could catch a few more zzzzs!

Jace is clearly not happy about something. Pretty sure he tripped and fell and is trying to tell us how he feels about it. 

Jace and Dad enjoying whats left of the fire. Jace used his bucket as a bowl quite a few times. I am pretty sure he was eating something out of his bucket in this picture. 

We went on a quick hike to Donut Falls (since it was right next to us). Jace didn't make it the whole way, but thats okay. He needed a nap pretty bad. 

Nothing catching a snooze when you can!

I used to make fun of people with selfie sticks, but to be honest, it was actually really nice to get a picture of all of us and be able to get some of the background too. If you use them for silly things I think they are dumb, but I really was grateful my awesome Asian friends had one so we could capture a few moments!

More selife stick fun! We wanted a picture with Jace. 

The glorious Donut Falls! We didn't hike up to the falls and go under them because we had a baby, and didn't want to risk anything. 

We really tried to get Jace to smile for us. He wasn't having any of it though. 

We were determined to play a whole game of Majong. We didn't make it. We only got like 10 rounds in or something. We had fun though!!

We had another couple from Paul's work come up for dinner. We had super yummy dutch oven chicken, potatoes, and cobbler. It turned out pretty good. Paul and I for sure need more practice at perfecting our dutch oven cooking, but it is getting better for sure!

Jace is enjoying some string cheese and a cookie before dinner

Jace decided that he wanted to do the stroller pushing. He pushed that thing around camp a whole bunch of times! And then got mad when we tried to take him for a ride in it. 

Breakfast time. 

Our last day in camp we were playing cards at the picnic table, and this turkey just walks out of the trees! He just hung out in our campsite for a good while, and drew attention from all the campers. We had lots of them standing on the road around our camp spot trying to get a good view of the turkey.

Needle Falls Hike Day 7

        Morning came a lot quicker than I was prepared for, but with such a great nights sleep I wasn't too bothered. We planned to try and be up and out of here as quickly as possible. We still had a good amount of distance to cover before we got back to our cars, and we wanted to have as much ground covered as we could before the sun was bright and shining on our backs. Most days we didn't actually hit the trail until around 10. Our goal today was to get on the trail by 8 so we could have those extra 2 hours before the sun came up over the mountains and got us. I would say we did pretty good at getting up and ready. I don't know if we were on the trail right on time, but we were pretty close.
      We hiked to  a spot where a group had their horses out to pasture and our big group scared them, I guess, because they kept moving down the trail further away from their masters camp. We stopped moving so they would stop moving and Levi and Paul took their packs off and tried to calm a few of them down and keep them from moving further away. Eventually we sent someone to the camp of the horse people and had them come and get their horses so we could continue our journey.
       By the time the sun actually hit us, we were grateful that we started so early in the day. We didn't have a lot of time before the sun came up, but the time we did have was nice and cool. Now that the sun was up we had to take more breaks and drink more water, but we made do. We eventually got to the bridge where we stopped the first day. Supposedly this was the half way point. Thinking that it was just that, we were all happy and feeling pretty good that we were at least half way done with the day. But the last "half" of the hike seemed to drag on and on! Maybe it was because we were hiking in the hottest part of the day, on our 7th day of hiking, and not in much tree coverage since we were walking through a burn area. Boy was it rough. We did fairly well at keeping our group together until this point, then we all started to spread out and thin out. Paul went ahead with the front of the group. I felt like I needed to stay behind with my mom and Kess. Kalena stayed back with me for quite some time until she needed to just "get-er-done" and left me. Kess was having a super rough time getting through the end because she was hurting pretty bad. I did my best to distract her and keep her mind off things. I had her tell me the plots of the last few books she read and she was able to chat and chat, and keep up with me pretty much until we got to the end. It was almost surreal coming out of the trees and seeing an outhouse, the closest thing I had seen to civilization in a week! When we got back to the cars, most everyone was there. There were a few stragglers, but not many. We all took our packs off, took our shoes off and basically celebrated! We had finished, and we were all alive! Tired, sore, hungry, and in need of a shower, but alive nonetheless! We all gathered for our annual foot picture, said our goodbyes to our cousins, (because they were going a different way), and loaded up our car.
       We stopped in Augusta to get some ice cream. We all needed something since we really hadn't had lunch, we had just snacked all day, and at this point it was about 3 in the afternoon. We got ice cream, and then got in the car to drive 2 hours to Helena. Once we got to Helena we booked a cheap motel room, showered, and went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Paul has been there before, but I hadn't. I don't know if it was because we had only eaten freeze dried meals all week, or if the food really was as good as I remember it being, but holy Hannah, it was yummy! I feel like I stuffed my face way more than I should have, especially since most of the week I had been eating much much smaller portions. After dinner we sort of just relaxed in a real bed, with clean clothes on. It was nice!
     My dad called my Uncle Tim to make sure that him and Brytt got out of the mountains alive. If you remember, they left us yesterday morning before we napped to try and get all the way out of mountains. Tim said they made it, but only barely. They ran out of water 3 times, and either had to ask someone they met to help them get water, or just drank it right out of the stream without pumping it at all. They said they were so tired that they were delusional, and hallucinating, but they managed to make it to their truck. I am so grateful they were safe, but I am also a little bummed that I missed the hallucinations. Coming from those two characters it would have been pretty stinkin funny!
     Another hike done and under our belts. And as always, it was a blast. An, I can't believe I actually thought that was fun sort of deal. But of course, the bad parts are either funny jokes now, or forgotten, and only the fun, exciting, and true bonding moments remain. Man, I love hiking!

Day 7! Yay! Us stopped for a mid day snack at our supposed half way point.

I wanted to get a picture of the burn area, but I also wanted dad to pose so it didn't look so empty. He kind of posed, a little bit. 

These fun purple flowers were all over the place in the burn areas. It was fun to see the contrasting purple and greens with the dead trees surrounded by them.

This is us at the end!! We made it out alive!!! Yay!! Kessla's face seriously shows how she was feeling at that point. She was SO ready to be done and off her feet and not moving any more. 

The sisters! We are happy because we don't have our packs on! We are free!!! 

Our poor feets! After getting blisters for the first time ever, I decided they are really not that fun, and that my hiking boots of 4 years from DI probably need to be replaced with some newer better ones. Paul too. His boots we shoe goo-ed back together before the hike, and after 70 miles and him melting have of the glue off of them, they are basically toast too. But our feet survived without any permanent damage, so thats a good thing I suppose. 

Yeah, by this point we were all a little delusional, but thats okay!

Our foot picture!! Only the cool people have wraps on their feet! No just kidding. Only the people that have horribly mangled, bruised, or blistered feet have wraps on. I would say though that that is a pretty good looking group of people though!