Payson Lakes Camping Trip

       I was a little bit bummed out that we didn't get to go on the Blatter family back packing trip this year because Paul had a business trip, and my in-laws had a vacation planned the 3 days I needed someone to watch Jace. But thats okay. We made up for it by going on a small 3 day camping trip just as a little family of 3 (and a half). We wanted to go down to southern Utah, but the friends we had hoped to visit were busy and couldn't do anything. So we decided to stay a little closer to home and go to the campsite of Paul's childhood, Payson Lakes.

      We were able to borrow a canoe from Paul's aunt, but the tricky thing was that this said canoe is stored at his cousins house, who was currently on a 4 week vacation with their family. We were able to get into the garage with a garage code, but the canoe was on a pulley system up against the wall, as well as smushed in between their suburban, (to which we did not have any keys for). No worries though! We managed to get it out with no injuries. Getting it back in is a whole other story though! After we managed to get the canoe out and strapped to our car we were on our way.
       An hour or so later we made it to the camp site. Jace had fallen asleep on the way up, but was wide awake at this point. We started unloading and got the tent all pulled out. Jace was so excited to help dad us a hammer to get the stakes in. He is still learning how to use the hammer the right way, but he is getting better. With the tent set up and everything mostly unloaded we took a trip down to the lake. Jace had a ball throwing rocks into the water and looking for fish in the lake. He also loved to search out the Pot Guts and watch them crawl around and search for scraps of food left out, or dropped.
      The first night up there I realized that I left my pillow at home. I am learning that doing that is a big no no if I want to get any sleep at all. I don't sleep well without a pillow in general, let alone my specific pillow that is so perfectly shaped and fluffed just the right amount. Needless to say, I didn't sleep super well that night. Paul and I tried to steal Jace's pillow from him, but he wouldn't have any of it! He did not want to share one little bit. So we tried to make do with our beach towels from our bag. The next night we stole a few of Jaces 15 blankets to make ourselves somewhat of a pillow. We slept a little better the second night. Lest be honest though, being pregnant and sleeping on an air mattress isn't the best nights sleep anyway.
      On the morning of day 2 we took our canoe out on the lake. It was still pretty chilly outside so we didn't get to play in the water. But thats okay. Jace was really unsure about the boat at first. When he got in and then Paul tried to get in, the boat was really wobbly and Jace didn't like that a whole lot. He cried for the first 3 or so minutes of the ride until he realized that everything was going to be okay. Jace's favorite part was going fast. He would ask us to go fast, fast, fast. He loved it! But coming back onto shore was also not a favorite. We spent a good hour or so out on the lake watching people fish, and watching fish jump. Then we headed back to camp. We needed to run into town and get ice because we didn't think we had enough to keep our cooler cold the rest of the trip.
     Jace slept most of the drive down and even slept after we got back up from picking up ice. Paul and I were tired and tried to take a nap, well let me clarify. I tried to nap. Paul was, of course, out like a log. I got maybe 10 minutes of sleep before Jace woke up. So I tried to get him to play in the tent and cuddle so we could sleep a little bit longer. After 15 minutes of that, he was ready to be out and playing. So I took him out of the tent to eat and play while Paul finished his nap. I think I tried to nap after Paul got up, but it wasn't happening. So we went on a walk down by the lake again.
    Funnily enough, we ran into one of Paul's co workers twice while we were out walking around the lake. He had brought his boys up fishing, (just for the day), but we managed to be taking a walk both days while he was there. Crazy. We didn't really get into our suits and play on the water, (which i am bummed about now, but thats okay. The day we left it was just about ready to rain so we didn't play in the water that day either.
       The last day we mostly just packed up, had an awesome breakfast, and headed home. After sleeping on the ground for a few nights we were ready for our own bed (and pillows!!) While Trying to put the canoe away, Paul accidentally dropped the nose of the canoe onto my neck/collarbone. He was trying to figure out the pulley system and didn't realize that if he pulled one end it would release the other. It scared me half to death. I was worried he had broken my collar bone, but he didn't. Just a nice little road rash, bruise, and some bleeding. The next day at church everyone thought that I had a hickey. It was pretty great.
   

Paul trying to get the canoe safely tied down to the car.

All strapped and ready to go

Jace is totally passed out in the back, but we are excited about our family get away

Jace has his hammer and is ready to help dad out

The boys using their muscles to get the stakes hammered into the ground

Jace figuring out the ropes of the campsite

Jace was so excited every time he would see a pot gut, he of course had to point them all out to us. 

Jus chillin in our chairs waiting for our dinners to cook.

Jace's all time favorite thing to do was throw rocks into the lake. We would walk around the whole lake picking up rocks just to throw into the water.

He ran out of ammo and was headed to go find some more. 

Jace and dad just chillin

Jace was almost actually smiling in this picture. It was kind of cute. 

Jace with mom. I hardly hold him these days because my belly is so in the way, but he sure loves it when I do hold him. 

The lake view from the dock.

We were trying to get Jace to smile, but he was looking directly into the sun

There goes his rock! 

We thought there might be a forest fire in the area because of the clouds/smoke around the sun. What ever it was, it made for a gorgeous sunset. 

Jace has started to develop a love of frisbee, (which I am really excited about). He is starting to get the hang of throwing it. He probably throws it in front of him 50% of the time. The other 50% it ends up swinging back behind him. Slowly though he will figure it out! He already has his dives down pat though! ;)

Jace and Dad are cookin us some breakfast

I had to document Paul doing his thing. 

I tried really hard to get a picture of Jace with me, but the sun was coming from all sorts of weird angles

I asked Jace to show me his chompers so I could hopefully get a picture of him smiling. This is the result! I have to say though that I love this picture and the next two. I pretty much laugh every time i see them because his face is so darn cute!

Chomper picture number 2

Chomper picture number 3 

The next two pictures are attempted smiles and I love them also. His face is so silly but so cute. I can't believe I managed to catch them on camera! 

Seriously just makes me giggle and love him even more every time I see these pictures! 

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.