Camping - Redman Campground

This year, Todd's family invited us to go camping with them July 23-July 25. I'm really grateful that they invite us to go with them, because the boys have such a fun time and just adore Todd's family. We went up on Thursday afternoon and got to the campground around 4-5pm. The kids painted rocks and explored while Matt put up the tent. We then were going to build a fire, but soon realized we are terrible campers. We forgot to bring a lighter, marshmallow sticks, and other things. We made tinfoil dinners to make for dinner that night, so Matt had to drive back down the canyon to get a lighter. Todd's family came later around 7pm and were able to bring us a few things we forgot. They also brought pizza and were nice to share, which turned out great for the boys because we overcooked the dinners a bit and they were not interested. There was a creek by our campsite and Deacon fell in SEVERAL times over the few days. His and Emerson's shoes were soaked and I didn't bring them extra shoes or tons of extra clothes. Luckily Matt's Mom was coming up the next day to go on a hike with us and brought me a bag of clothes for the boys and some shoes. That turned out to be such a blessing since Deacon couldn't seem to keep himself from getting soaked. We went to bed the first night and woke up, had breakfast, and met Sky, Jamison, and their new baby, Jacob, at the trail head for Donut Falls. It was a fun hike and the boys did well. Emerson tried to get Matt to carry him, which he did a little, but overall he did pretty good. Todd was nice to carry him over the rocks by the water and also went with Deacon up the falls and other places. 

We then went back to camp and had lunch. The boys loved playing with baby Jacob, which actually surprised me. We played some games and Emer took a long nap. We then met Matt's Mom at Silver Lake. We walked around the lake and Deacon was determined to catch a fish. He spent pretty much the whole time trying to find things to catch a fish with. Nate, Josh, Talise, and Penny were all sweet to try to help him. Doug and Ashley came and met us towards the end of our hike/walk.

We then had a fire that night and roasted hot dogs and made s'mores. The kids had fun playing around the camp. There were a ton of rodents around and they kept getting into our garbage at night. Deacon got wet - AGAIN! 

The next morning we had breakfast and got packed up. We then went to Brighton and hiked to Mary's Lake. Emerson was exhausted by this point and had a pretty hard time. Matt carried him a lot of the way, but we eventually made it. There were a bunch of small fish by the shore and the kids tried to catch them in hats. I think they caught a few. We had some snacks and headed back down the mountain. We made and ate lunch and then headed for home. We had another fun camping trip. Penny was glued to Emerson and Deacon loved being with Nate and Josh. It was fun to spend time with family, go hiking, and having some fires.

Emer put on Todd's hat and said "I'm Uncle Todd."

Doug took this picture with his drone: