Ward Campout

The weekend after the wedding was our ward campout. 

 The campout was held at Ayres Natural Bridge. (We went out there last year to meet up with Nicia and her kids.) It is such a gorgeous area.

 You can see the bridge in the background. Pretty cool, right?

 I knew we would be playing in the water, so what on earth made me put Pierscen in jeans and tennis shoes I cannot say. Okay... well I was thinking more along the lines of climbing rocks and falling down. Oh well. I took of his shoes and rolled up his pants. At least I had enough foresight to bring an extra set of clothes for him.

 He loved playing in the water! It is perfect for the little kids that want to walk around in it. Not very deep and not super cold either.

P loved hanging out with the other kids too. I snapped this picture primarily for my mom. One of those small world stories... The little boy in the picture below is the son of a girl named Marci. I teach her daughter piano. One day I was talking about my mom and she thought the name sounded familiar. She ended up talking to her dad about it and it turns out that my mom and her dad were good friends in high school in St. George, Ut. Say what?! I didn't see that one coming! Especially because Marci is from Michigan! Anyway, when I told my mom she was really excited to hear all about it. Funny, huh?

Speaking of small world (I'll just add this in here while I'm at it...) there is a lady in the ward named Cynthia. She is from California. When I told her that I was from Orem, she said she has some cousins there and asked if I might know them. Orem is a pretty big place so the chances are pretty slim but as it turns out... her cousins was one of Ryan's best friends in high school. Ha!

And most recently... I go on walks most mornings with a couple girls named Jenny and Lindsay. I realized one of my old coworkers, Kailey, is from Burley, ID and so is Jenny. Turns out Jenny went to school with Kailey's older brother. And Lindsay, who is from Payson, UT, was really good friends with Kailey's husband, Brady's, older sister. It really is a small world people. Especially in the church.  

Natural Bridge is not only gorgeous, but it has some great grassy areas, volleyball pits, and some fun playgrounds. P loved climbing up on this old tractors. 

And four wheelers...

 Dinner was a Dutch Oven Pot Luck. I only partially cheated. I made lasagna from scratch and then put it in the Dutch Oven. All I know is that it got eaten. So that's good. :)

Pierscen and the other kids had a great time chasing a couple bunnies they found in the area. 

And this... merry-go-round of sorts... was a huge hit! P really, really, REALLY wanted to climb on it, but I was a little nervous with how fast they were going with the other kids. I didn't know if P would hold on or not. 

When most the kids got off, I put Pierscen on. We actually got him going pretty fast and he could not get enough of it! He was laughing like crazy. And whenever it slowed down he would yell for us to keep running. 

That evening we had a flag retirement ceremony, sang a few songs, and then everyone made for their beds as a few rain drops started hitting the ground. We chickened out on the camping part. Here's the thing... Pierscen moves a lot in his sleep so he definitely needs something that will contain him... like a port-a-crib. But as I have mentioned, he hates it. Besides that, our tent isn't big enough for it. We would be willing to give it a go if we weren't surrounded by a million other people trying to sleep too. Some day...

So we went home to our soft beds and came back the next morning. The young men challenged each other to see who could survive the longest on this merry-go-round. It was pretty funny.

 We enjoyed a nice breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Pierscen loves bacon. He took a piece with him on the road as we went to explore. 

Together the boys made a disturbing discovery along the banks of the stream (and even where all the kids were playing the day before)...

Leeches! Gross! Millions of tiny leeches! As far as I know, no one had any issues with them... but ewww!

As Pierscen was sitting on the bank, he was throwing rocks into the water. He took a brief break, and when he started up again, he made the monumental mistake of throwing his bacon instead of the rock. He realized his mistake instantly and sat there in shock staring eye-wided at the the piece of bacon... just out of reach sinking in the water. It was devistating. 

It was pretty cool to see all the swallow's nests along the cliff walls. 

 P made some new friends, Andrew and Daniel while we were there. They have since come over to play a few times.

We had a great time. I hope they do it again this next year. (I'm sure they will if Ryan has any say.) I was really impressed with the turn out and I think everyone liked it. It's hard not to when you are at Natural Bridge. It is beautiful!