Best Weekend Ever!

It's official. I love camping! I had the best time this weekend. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun. Everything turned out great and I can't wait to go again. In fact, we are going again in three weeks, the campsite is already reserved! We went camping up American Fork Canyon at Granite Flats. We are lucky enough to have some amazing friends in Ricky and Suzie who are pretty much the best campers you'll ever meet. They recommended going to this site for my first camping experience, and it was such a gorgeous spot. Ricky and Nate went up a night early to set up our tents and reserve our spot since it was too early in the season to reserve them online. Nate and I went up the next afternoon to get the party started! I get there and I see the worlds dinkiest tent. We had borrowed one from my mom and Nate told me it was a little on the small size but that it would still work. Um no, there was no way it was going to work. I already had a little anxiety about going camping, and this just about sent me right over the edge. So once Nate and I had unloaded the car we turned right around and went to buy a new tent. We found a great deal on one at Costco and also found some sweet chairs with detachable foot rests. Now I was ready to camp. So we went back up the canyon and set up our new tent and made ourselves at home. There was tons of wildlife and I managed to take 466 pictures during our two night stay. When dinner time got closer, Nate was able to build a fire. That boy sure loves to make camp fires, correction, bon fires. The bigger the better. Ricky and Suzie joined us that evening and we ate some tin foil dinners and made some dessert calzones. Who says you can't camp in style? The next day was so fun. We started out with an amazing mountain man dutch oven breakfast that Ricky made. We played cards, went for a mini hike, and then drove to the lake. In addition to being professional campers, Ricky and Suzie are great fishermen. Ricky taught Nate to fish while Suzie and I talked and took pictures. Then Nate caught a fish! His very first fish! I can't even tell you how proud and happy I was! Ricky had already caught one and I was secretly praying that Nate would catch one too, and he did! It was a decent sized fish too. I was able to get some great pictures too. I've never seen Nate smile so big. He was on cloud nine the whole trip, but I think this was his favorite part. We fished for a little longer without any more success. Oh, the lake was so serene though. It was so gorgeous I could've stayed all day. We had another great dutch oven dinner, pizza, that night and made s'mores and talked by the fire for hours. I don't remember who, but some one got us started telling embarrassing stories about ourselves. Poor Ricky and Suzie, they got to know us pretty well, maybe a little too well, hopefully they still want to be our friends! Goodness. Before heading home, the boys got up early to go fishing again. Nate caught two more fish! He's on a roll! I was really sad that we had to go home that morning. I was having so much fun, it was really hard to leave. I am pretty proud of myself, I survived two nights in the woods, in bear and moose country, I survived the vaults, and I conquered a fear. I learned that I love camping, outdoor cooking, and I learned that Nate and I are so blessed to have friends like Ricky and Suzie. Is it lame that I want our future kids to marry their future kids? Imagine how dang fun those family get-togethers would be! Thanks again you guys for the best weekend ever!

Oh goodness, I did not know squirrels could be so loud! No need for an alarm clock with those guys around. I took tons of pictures of that squirrel, eventually he got tired of the paparazzi and turned and started chattering at me so I had to leave. See that rabbit? He was around all weekend. There were two rabbits that were chasing each other all day, seriously, every 20-30 minutes they'd run right through our campsite. I made the mistake of asking out loud if they were husband and wife rabbits, every body laughed and laughed. I also think those ducks could be husband and wife ducks.