I have the greatest family!

I got to go camping with my family for the Fourth of July, just like every year. It was the best! It is my cousin Seth's last campout with the family before his mission, so we made the most of it. My favorite part was rappelling, as usual. But paintballing was fun too. The first day we figured out our tent arrangements and roasted marshmallows and starbursts before bed. And 3 of my cousins and my brother took shirtless pictures wearing Seth's cowboy hat. I don't know why. It was my uncle Danny's idea. Seth was funny about that hat- I don't think it left his head once the entire trip. He has always worn baseball caps before. It started to rain after we were all settled in our tent. We played a game that my brother kyle suggested, where you stand up in your sleeping bags and try to knock each other over without using your hands. Turns out this was a bad idea, although we had a lot of fun. When we stopped playing... the tent was sagging. Oops. Turns out we broke one tent pole and bent another. A few of the guys went out and got it standing again. We all went to bed but as the night went on the rain fell harder. Yep, the tent leaked. We all got pretty wet, but Kyle, who was sleeping at the bottom along our feet, got soaked. In the morning we put all our stuff out on the cars and our trailer to dry. The first thing on the agenda was paintball. I was the only girl who played with the guys and it was pretty sweet. Playing paintball gives you a surprisingly huge adrenaline rush. I got some sweet welts- battle wounds. I loved it. After that we jumped in the back of my uncle's truck and went to the reservoir where he planned to fish. Unfortunately, it started raining again while we were driving. Note to self- Riding in the back of a truck while it is raining is a miserable experience. Everyone started complaining so I tried to take everyone's mind off how cold and wet they were by making them all answer questions like, "What's your favorite color, food, etc." That seemed to improve the mood of the younger kids, but maybe not the older ones. Why my uncles didn't turn around and go back to camp is a mystery... Anyway, the weather was better up at the reservoir, but still too cold to swim. My cousin Aubrey and I washed our hair by laying back on a rock and dipping our hair in the water. Her brother Conner got mad at us for putting shampoo in the water and supposedly killing the fish, but we didn't care. Our hair was (somewhat) clean. Then Uncle Danny arrived with his van- to rescue us! Most of us jumped in the van to go back to camp, but some of the kids stayed to fish with Uncle Todd and Uncle Greg. When we got back the weather was much better, and our kind families had moved our dry sleeping bags back to the tent when the rain started so they stayed dry. We ate lunch and then set out hiking to the rappelling cliff. Seth climbed up to the cave next to the rappelling cliff and didn't even need to duct tape his pants afterward. :) (Inside family joke... ha ha) We spent a couple hours rappelling, and that was the best part of the trip for me. I only went off twice because there were lots of kids waiting, but it was awesome. When we got back it was time for dinner. After dinner we all just sat around the fire talking and entertaining ourselves. A lot of the guys were carving. I was weaving flower garlands for some of my little girl cousins and my sisters. (A newly discovered talent) And some of them were making friendship bracelets. We went to bed and stayed up late talking again. When we did go to bed all of us slept better because it didn't rain. In the morning we got up and ate breakfast and chilled for awhile before we started packing up. Eventually we got camp packed up and we broke out the pinatas that the kids had painted the day before. The little kids hit one and scrambled for their candy- it is really funny to watch. Then the older kids attacked ours. They hang a rope over a tree branch so that someone can raise and lower the pinata to make it harder. The first round we were blindfolded, the second time through we weren't. We got our candy too and then it was time to go. This year we did do one thing differently. Instead of going home to South Weber we went to Payson. We went to my Grandpa Jones's house and used his showers. We cleaned up nice, did our hair and make up and such, and put on our matching shirts. Then we went to Aunt Melissa and Uncle Brian's house for family pictures. When we were done taking pictures we finally went home. It was kind of nice that we didn't have to fight for showers when we got home because we were all clean already. I was really sad that I missed my friends Alyssa and Hugh's wedding lunch and reception festivities on Thursday, but I know I made the right choice in going camping- I have the most amazing family and I really needed that time that I spent with them. :)