Camping - July 2012

We just got home from camping around 11pm on Wednesday night. It was such a fun trip! We got up Monday morning and Kimbri and I dropped Rick off at work at the MTC and ran to a couple stores to get a few of food items for the trip. After our errands we went and picked up Rick and all came home to continue packing. Wow. I didn't realize how much we needed to pack just for a few days of camping. I think it was mostly because we have never gone camping with a baby and so we had a lot of things for her... food, pajamas, jackets/sweaters, diapers, an extra binky, a hat, a ton of blakets, and extra clothes, just in case. We decided to even pack her highchair because it folds up and easily fits in the car. My parents even brought her swing that she has at their house that my little sister, Olivia, bought at a yard sale. Kimbri LOVES to swing. And it often puts her to sleep like the picture below. 

Olivia brought her hammock and Kimbri sure enjoyed being in that too.

So after packing all the necessities for camping, and probably more than needed, we went on our way up to Washington Lake in the Wasatch Mountains. It was beautiful! We went to the same camp ground this year as we did 2 years ago and it's really the perfect spot. We camped just a short distance away from this beauty:

It was so relaxing just to be up in the mountains away from everything and just enjoy the time to be with family. I was so happy to get to spend a few days with Rick and Kimbri along with several other family members and relatives. My parents and all my siblings except Dawson were able to come. Nolan and Zach had to leave a little early for work and such but they were still able to be there for part of the time which was awesome. My aunt Carla and her son Eric also were able to come for one night and a day and it was great to see them too. Uncle Doug and Aunt Kathy came over from Colorado with Bevan and Camille and Janelle and Brandon came all the way down from Montana! Wahoo! Jeralyn and Spencer are serving missions and Catherine is currently in the Dominican Republic for a couple more weeks so they obviously weren't able to make it. My aunt Margaret came up with her three kids, Ben, Dan and Jenna.  Landon and Rachel got to come too and Lincoln, Megan and their little boy Bevan made it there for part of it too! It was so so so fun. we need to do this kind of get together thing more!

Kimbri loved going over to the lake and really enjoyed getting her feet and legs wet but I think what she really wanted was to get all the way in! She loves being in the water so much.

Here is Olivia fishing and Rick and Kimbri in front of Washington Lake:

Now for a daddy/daughter picture! 

Except for some rain on the first day we were there, the weather was beautiful!

Zach and one of his dogs, Timber.

Olivia spent a ton of time fishing! 

Zach decided to get in the freezing cold water and to not get 

his shirt wet he made a sort of turban or something...

And here are a couple other pictures taken down by the lake:

As I mentioned before, it was SO handy to have a collapsible highchair to take with us camping. She's been doing this squinty smile face a ton lately and it is just so hilarious to me! Her eyes are nearly all the way shut when she smiles like this! She was pulling these faces all day long while up in the mountains:)

On Wednesday a bunch of the campers decided that it was necessary to go on a hike up to Haystack Lake because we are Haycock's. Haha :) Just kidding. Not necessary but it really was a great idea! For those of you who don't know, "Haycock" means, "stack of hay".  It was such a great hike and I'm really glad we went on it! Rick carried Kimbri in a pack on his back that we borrowed from his parents and it worked great. We took a blanket for her so she could prop her head on it and she went to sleep soon after we started the hike and slept the whole way there. It took us almost one hour to get there. 

Kimbri was a great hiker.
She slept almost the whole way there:)

Here is a picture of Haystack lake. My uncle estimated it was probably somewhere between 2.5 to 3 miles each way so it turned out to be a pretty decent hike! 

We got there and discovered that someone had made a raft and of course the some of the boys had to try it out ;) 

Enoch and Landon out on the raft.

Enoch decided to get in the freezing cold water.

Enoch out on the raft.

Brandon & Janelle

Enoch and Dan trying to row over
to the dock that someone made.

The Hikers: Margaret, Kathy, Camille, Rick, Kimbri, Alina, Brandon, Janelle, Landon, Rachel,
Ben  and Enoch and Dan in the front. Plus Uncle Doug who was the one taking the pictures.

 A few more pictures from the hike:

Kimbri gnawing on one of her favorite things...carrots, while sitting on her Great-grandmother's lap.

Going on walks was another fun activity we did quite a bit up in the mountains!

Wyatt sweeping the campground area with a broom made out of a stick and some pine tree branches.

Kimbri playing with Grandpa Haycock :)

Wednesday night we ate a meal that Enoch requested in honor of his birthday that is actually next week on July 26. He wanted nothing more than to go camping for his birthday so we did an early celebration. We ate spaghetti with red meat sauce and homemade alfredo sauce that my mom made and my dad grilled chicken. And as almost every other Enoch birthday we had cheesecake for dessert! Yum :)

Happy 8th Birthday Enoch!

Kimbri and Carrots

I just have to say, again, that Kimbri likes to eat. One of her most recent food items are carrots. Okay, so maybe she doesn't end up actually eating them but she sure does LOVE to gnaw on them. 

She is just so funny.

I may have gone a little overboard on the amount of carrot pictures that I took 

but they sure make me laugh!

Kimbri getting extremely
excited about her carrot!

I love this girl so much! She reminds me everyday about the simple joys in our lives, even as simple as carrots :)  But really, if you stop and think about it, you can find so many simple joys in your life! And Kimbri is definitely one of the biggest joys in my life!! 

More Graduation Photos...

My dad emailed me these photos that he had taken at my graduation. I wasn't able to get many on my camera since I was in a lot of the pictures and Rick was watching Kimbri. So thanks dad for documenting this day for me!!

Here are some Mommy/Daughter photos. Wow. I never thought that I would be graduating from BYU with a baby! But it happened and I'm sooooo glad that it did. Kimbri is such a joy in my life and I love her so so so much! She has such a happy little personality and I just can't imagine my life without my little miss Kimbri. 

And also, I don't think it would've been possible for me to graduate without all the wonderful people in my life that helped me! Since Kimbri was born 3 weeks early she was born during summer term. Both Rick and I were taking a full set of classes and working. My teachers were really kind and were willing to work with me. Rick woke up with me in the middle of the night, multiple times a night to help me feed Kimbri (she struggled with nursing for two weeks before she got the hang of it). My parents and in-laws babysat for us on days that my class and work scheduled overlapped with Rick's. My amazing cousin, Janelle, babysat Kimbri outside my biology class in the hallway twice a week so that I could attend class and so so so many more people helped me get through that semester!

So in other words, I wouldn't have graduated without all of the wonderful people in my life. Thank you to every one of you :)

Alina, Landon, Janelle

Me and my one and only sister, Olivia

My incredible and greatly supportive
parents. I love you guys!

Family photo :)

Rick and Kimbri watching me graduate.

Kimbri kept trying to grab the flowers.

Me with all my brothers! It was awesome
to have all of them there! Thanks guys!

My family

Rick's family

My amazing in-laws, Mike & Sundee Stone

Kimbri & Bevan (Megan & Lincoln's baby)

I'm pretty sure I already wrote about the rest of the graduation festivities in a previous post with some other graduation photos so I won't go into detail here but it was such a fun week filled with so much family and friends! 

I look forward to next April when Rick and my cousin, Catherine, will both graduate! 

Happy 4th of July!

I'm a little late getting our 4th of July pictures posted but either way it was a really fun day! Rick had to work in the morning at the MTC so I decided that I would walk with Kimbri over to the parade. We live on 300 East so it was a short walk over to University Avenue. We took a nice big camping chair and Kimbri's stroller. Here is Kimbri testing out one of the chairs Rick's parents gave us. 

We were lucky enough to get a nice shady spot underneath a tree by the sidewalk. Pretty sure Kimbri had no idea what was going on but every time a marching band in the parade went by she started dancing and would just look and stare, trying to figure out where the music was coming from.

The only picture I took of the actual parade. It looked like Mushu from Mulan to me...

After a while Kimbri started to get really tired so I gave her bottle that I had packed and Kimbri went from looking like this...

...to this...

...and finally to this. That is the life right there :) Legs propped up, leaned back, sleeping in the shade. 

After the parade we walked home and Kimbri had just woke up so I decided to 

zsnap a few pictures on our front porch. I love this little girl sooooo much!

She was being so smiley :)

I forgot to get my camera out later on in the day but that evening we went down to Spanish Fork and had a bbq with my family, my grandparents and some out of down relatives - Christine and Josh with their two adorable boys, Rock and Gunner and Eric and Maryella were there too! It was a blast! We had hamburgers and hotdogs with delicious corn salsa that my mom made, a lot of fruit and a potato salad that I made. We ate and talked and it was so fun to just visit with family for the whole evening! 

Then later on that night we had homemade ice cream and the little kids 

did sparklers. It was a fun 4th of July!