Miracle

When Ryan and I got married I was very aware of his feelings about camping and I knew that we would never do any camping whatsoever. Camping for Ryan is a Motel 6. I was fine with this. I like to go hiking and the outdoors, but sleeping in a tent is not really my idea of fun either. This was working fine for us, but Emily loves nature and as she has gotten older she has started to ask to go camping. I kept telling her that when she turned 12 she would be able to go to girls camp and that would be great. She still kept asking and Joe joined in the chorus also. We continued to tell them that they would have plenty of opportunity to camp when they were older.




Then the ward camp out was announced. Ryan was still very against camping, but the idea appealed to me a little. We would be able to give the kids the experience of camping and only have to do a portion of the work. All of the food and campground activities would be provided. All we would have to do is pitch our tent and roll out our sleeping bags, and it was only one night. So I decided to talk to Ryan about going. He said no. Camping was not for him. A few days passed and I talked to a couple of my friends who were going with their family. Emily really wanted to go and I was willing to take her. My friends offered to help me if I just wanted to bring Emily and go. I knew Ryan would not be excited about his girls going camping "alone" even if it was with the ward, but I thought I would give it a try. So I told Ryan that I was going to take Emily on the ward camp out. That was all it took and suddenly the whole family was going. We began finding camping equipment. Luckily we have family who camp so we were able to borrow most of what we needed. (Thanks Jon and Ron).


Last Friday was the camp out. We were a little worried about rain, but it ended up staying dry and we had a great time. We ended up taking two borrowed tents to fit our family. Ryan Josh Joseph and I slept in one and Emily and her friend Lindsey slept in the other. Lindseys family was also there, but we thought it would be fun for the girls. The activities committee did a great job with all of their activities and the kids loved running around in the trees.

They had a campfire around 9:00pm and the kids got to roast marshmellows. Then they told a few stories. after the program the leaders took groups on a cat eye hike. The committee had gone around and put reflecting stickers on trees around the camp so when you shined your light on them they looked like cat eyes. The storey teller told the kids that we needed to get all of the baby cougars back to their mother so that the cougars (BYU ) could have a good season. Our Bishopric are all BIG U of U fans so as soon as that was said the bishop almost cancelled the hike. On the hike we did get close enough that you could see the eyes were stickers. I liked that because Joseph was really into the moment. Emily was having fun with it too.

After the hike we got the kids in bed and visited around the fire. When we finally climbed into our sleeping bags I asked Ryan if he was glad we came. It was a miracle. Ryan said yes and that we need to buy a big tent for our family so we would have it for "next time."

The kids all slept really well (even though I accidentally left Josh's "night, night" at home) Ryan and I have had better nights of sleep so I was worried in the morning that he had changed his mind so I didn't bring it up again.

They had lots of games and activities for the kids to do in the morning while we got our stuff packed up again.
Joe loved building his marshmallow cannon and shooting the marshmallows.
Josh was really happy to play with the bubbles. I had never thought of using a fly swatter as a bubble blower before. I was surprised how well it worked and the kids liked using it to pop the bubbles too. Emily tried out all of the activities including joining the teenagers in their game of volleyball for a few minutes. We made it home alive, and Ryan is still talking about purchasing a tent, so maybe we will camp again. I think I am for camping as long as it is a group camping trip. It was really nice having someone prepare the food, campfire, and activities, and the fresh mountain air was really nice.