Camping the right way

On Saturday we got home from a week of camping at the beautiful Ensign Ranch on the eastern face of the Cascades. We had a wonderful time and loved every minute of it! (Aside from the snow-in June!- and the port-a-potties). Here's a collection of pictures...or not. Blogger's having troubles today. So we'll have to do this w/o illustrations. Ensign Ranch is owned by the church and used for Girl's camp and ward/stake camp-outs and the like and thus is very clean (yeah!) and has incredibly nice and helpful senior missionary couples as staff who are willing to do just about anything you ask them and more. Except that I think they forget just when you asked them (they are oldish, after all) so some maintenance things that needed fixing around our cabin took a few days to be addressed. But they were awfully nice about it. We had a cabin that was just big enough for the 4 kids and 4 adults and for the first 4 days we were the only guests at the ranch which was really great. Of course, the first three day we had rather crumby weather, but we were still able to get outside and do some things. Some of the highlights included the horse rides for the kids which Sam LOVED and Grace came to love on our second visit to the stables. There was also a giant slip-n-slid which was SO MUCH FUN!!! Thursday was the first day with sun though the wind was very brisk and made things cold. Sam had to finally quit and sit in the sun wrapped up in his towel because he was shivering so bad. We did it again on Friday when it was a bit warmer and could stay longer. All the kids had the best of times and were sorry to have to leave. We were lucky that all the kids got along so well, especially Grace and her cousin Jayme, both of whom have rather forceful personalities and like being the center of attention and the one in charge. We had great food thanks to chef-in-chief Rob and only had to go the emergency room once when Alaina stuck a bead up her nose. Way up.
So now we're home and the laundry's almost done. Tomorrow is Grace's birthday and then on Wednesday the kids and I are off to Utah. I'm excited to be seeing my family. I'm also excited about coming home and not having any more vacations for a good long while.