Manti 2009

The bow hunt this year was not as fun as it has been in the past. The main reason was that Keegan was sick. He never stopped crying. I felt really bad for the poor little guy but by the 2nd day of nonstop crying I had had enough. I packed up the suburban and took the kids home. Ted is staying 2 more days in hopes that he might get a second chance at a deer that's been named. "BFT" . Which is short for Big F@*# ing Typical. These men get out in the mountains and they become prehistoric cavemen. All manners and civilized world gets left behind. It's really pretty funny to see. Crazy Hunters!
One really cool thing we saw this year was the planet Saturn. It was really bright and with Ted's binoculars we could see 3 moons around it. It was super neat!

These are the only pictures I was able to get of Keegan "playing". Not so much a happy camper.

This is what Keegan and I did for 2 days. We never left the comforts of our trailor. Doesn't he look miserable?
A tradition started several years ago is Daesha's favorite activity. It is called the Animal Hunt. The moms bring a stuffed animal (one for each of your kids) to hide. The kids go for a small walk while a couple parents hide the animals. When the kids return to camp they find animals hidden among the bushes and trees. This was the first that I was able to get Keegan out of the trailor. He even smiled when he found this cute dinosaur.

All the kids with their animals they found. Keegan is not in the picture. He was hanging on my leg and crying because I set him next to his sister and took more than 5 steps away from him to take the picture.

The kids rode the 4-wheelers all weekend. They are small just for kids but still go way too fast if you ask me. (around 15-20 miles an hour) I loved watching them buzz around camp and shooting each other with their toy bow and arrows. Even though Keegan and I were not having any fun in our trailor I was happy to see Daesha having a great time. I realized that camping is sometimes way more fun for kids than it is for the parents.

Love this picture of the kids. They are so dang cute. Sorry Kim, I promise I tried making ALL the kids wear helmets while on the wheeler. Your kids are just naughty!!! Somehow I got the role of being the wheeler patrol. Because I could see the crazy antics happening on the machines from my trailor window. As soon as I would step out side the throttles somehow would let up. hahaha!!

This year the "ward" split. A few of us felt the group was getting much to big. In the years past we have had up to 80 people in camp. I did miss seeing and visiting with some family and friends left behind in the "old" ward. But even if we had camped there I wouldn't have been able to visit anyway due to a sick kiddo. We camped at John August Lake. It was just a short 5 minute drive to the other camp.

Things I have grown to love about Manti Mountain:

- The view out our trailor window.

- Crisp morning air.

- Seeing a night sky plastered with billions and billions of stars.

- Thunder storms.

- NEVER hear the words "I'm bored"

- Everything tastes better.

- Can eat everything and the guilt isn't there because we are camping.

- "It was this big" stories from the hunters at the end of the day.

- "I was this close" or "My arrow went right over it's back" stories.

- Sitting by the campfire with loved ones.

- Getting a sunburn when you don't remember being outside for long lengths of time.
- Getting a bunch of wild flowers with roots from my daughter.

- Getting one wild flower from my husband.

- Loosing track of time.