Family Camp 2009

It's been a crazy couple of weeks and will continue to be crazy until mid September but I thought I would try to squeeze in a post about our family camp. This year family camp was held in Island Park, Idaho. We had about 36 people attend. The pictures don't even do it justice how beautiful everything was up there. We drove up Wednesday and stayed in Clifton then left in the morning. We drove Dad's truck and towed the 7 canoes Dad borrowed from the scouts. Maryn was so excited she could hardly contain herself. We had a caravan of about 4 trucks with trailers at one point or another. Matt and I actually missed the exit East going into Rexburg so had a nice detour of about 16 miles. You'd think after attending Ricks for 2 years that I would've had that exit down. I had a flood of memories come back passing through Rexburg and the crazy thing was some of the places we visited in Island Park I kept having de ja vu that I had been there before. One place definitely I know I had visited. Anyhow, we got camp set up and went for a walk to a nearby bridge and to check out our new surroundings for a while.

The next day we got to float the bear river. It wasn't more than 2 feet deep and was very peaceful. The day that I went there wasn't too many people. The water was so clear you could see the bottom and the fish. If Matt would've had an Idaho fishing license he probably would've been fishing but most of his brothers went.

That night we had a talent night and the star of the show was Andy and family. They did a short man skit and he was Hornsby Hucksmeyer and Dallin(his son) was his hands and they preceded to get ready in the morning with shaving and all. Pretty hilarious! Maryn sang Part of your World and our family did a Turkey Buzzard skit. Maryn even won a prize for singing!

The next day I took a drive with Mom and Dad Murdock up the mountain to a look out. You could see Idaho, Montana and Wyoming from the point of the mountain. The view was breathtaking. The kids were riding with Grandpa and said they scared stiff the whole way down because they thought they were going to fly off the mountain because Grandpa was driving crazy. We had games one of the nights and played copycat and that was as big hit with the kids, Never Have I Ever and volleyball that night. Julie's family had games the night before and played a fun balloon game.

That night Matt and I retired to bed. I was out like a light but Matt woke me up asking me if I heard that noise. Then, I heard coyote's howling followed by heavy steps in the forest that was snapping twigs. I stopped breathing and started shaking and Matt was visibly shaking. Then we started hearing loud sniffing around our tent. After a few minutes Matt decided to check things out. In my mind I had a plan if anything happened I was going to scoop the girls in my arms and run for our families tent trailers. Also, I was thinking maybe a tent trailer would be a nice thing to own after all. Matt went out and shined the light around. He flashed a raccoon that stopped dead in his tracks then started running away from whatever was stomping in the woods. Our camp was riddled with raccoons. The stomping stopped after Matt checked things out. He came back in the tent and refused to sleep next to the side so he curled up with Maryn and Macey and we tried to get back to sleep. Hard to sleep after that. We're thinking the loud stomping was probably a moose or something.

In the morning Grandpa decided to get an early start on cousin's camp and left a few hours earlier. We got Maryn ready and had a talk with her about being a good girl. We've had reservations about her going but didn't want to deny her this opportunity. We've pretty much been non-existent to her this whole trip and I asked her for a hug before leaving and she said no and stomped off. Maybe this is a much needed break for me. Grandpa and Grandma were taking them to the IMAX in West Yellowstone then back to Clifton to get rested up for their trip to Bear Lake and other places.

Since we were one less child we loaded Macey up with my sister in law and her daughter and headed up to West Yellowstone ourselves so I could say that I had at least been there. Unfortunately we decided not to go in the park but we walked around all the little shops and got ice cream at this little fountain shop. All in one day we hit 3 states.

Later in the day we took a trip to Mesa Falls. I swear that I have been here before. It was beautiful. There were a Upper and Lower Falls. When we went to the Lower Falls there was a quite a stir because people were going to kayak off the falls. And supposedly someone took a blow up couch down there and was going to attempt to go off the falls with that. Just insanity!

We stayed until Sunday morning and by then were so bitten to death from mosquitoes we were very ready to come home but had a wonderful trip. We stopped by the house to drop off the canoes and peeked in on the children. They were having so much fun we weren't even there.