New Camera, Our Camping Trip, and Other Fun - July 31 - August 1, 2012

Tuesday - July 31, 2012
We got a new camera!  I love it!  It is so fun to take pictures with this camera!  Regan, if you are reading this, I will get your old camera back to you as soon as possible and thank you for letting me borrow it for so long.

The day after we got our camera we went camping at Lava Hot Springs with my sister Kari and her kids.  Here's a few pictures of us before we left.  I was just so excited to use our new camera.

We had a fun campsite.  The campsite they had originally assigned us was terrible.  We got out, walked around a little, feeling extremely disappointed, then Kari yelled for us to come see what she found.  She found the perfect campsite.  Kari and Roger went back to the campground office and asked if we could switch.  They let us!  The new campsite was amazing.  It was perfect.  There was a little creek right next to it.  When you walk out in the water, you discover that the creek is much bigger than expected and there was a fun area for the kids to play in.

 Our plan was to set up camp then go into Lava and float the river.  We were exhausted after setting up camp in the heat and the kids were having a lot of fun playing in the water by the campground, so we rested for a little while.  when we were finally ready to go, a storm blew in.  We checked the weather before leaving and there was nothing to indicate that there would be any kind of bad weather.  So the storm came in with lots of wind, rain and thunder.  It was exciting!  The kids were scared.  Kari's tent didn't have a rain cover, so some of their stuff got wet.  Inside our tent got a little wet too, but only on the sides and none of our stuff got wet.  So we all settled in our tent to play games and wait out the storm.

 The storm ended and we were back to playing outside in no time at all.

 Roger will never just smile for the picture.  He always insists on making a face.  I love my Roger!

 Damen wanted a picture of him and his Doritos.  Parker and Kari jumped in the picture too.

 Alissa and Kiara spent a lot of time catching little fish that were in the water.  They put the fish back when they were done.

 Kari posed so Roger could test out the portrait setting on the new camera.

 I wanted to try out the night time feature on our camera.  The kids were dancing around to some music.  Kari introduced Roger to an online scrabble game, so they are sitting and playing scrabble.

Wednesday - August 1, 2012

 The next day we decided that we would float the river in the morning then spend the afternoon at the pool.  Brinley was too afraid to go so Roger and her found a bridge and waited for us to pass under them.

  Kari and Damen are the only ones that made it that far.  We weren't sure where to get in since we have never done this before.  We saw some other people carrying their tubes and we decided to follow them and get in where they did, since they seemed to know where they were going.  We read about the river online and asked the lady, when we were renting our tubes, all about it.  We learned that there was one waterfall and it wasn't that big.  We were also told that there would be stairs before the waterfall so we could get out, walk past it, and get back in past the waterfall.  So we get in and we are so excited for our little adventure.  We had talked about whether or not to go down the waterfall when we got to it.  I had decided that I did not want to go down a waterfall.  Alissa and Kiara are in one raft.  They are the first to go.  I'm watching them as we start floating and all of the sudden they just disappeared!  I was so shocked because I didn't even see anything coming.  Next Parker and Damen's floaty goes down.  Kari and I were on individual floaties and we got to it at the same time.  I was terrified when I realized that it was a waterfall!  Nobody said anything about if you get in at the wrong spot you will go down two terrifying big waterfalls!  Parker, Damen and Kari all managed to make it down without flipping.  Kiara and Alissa's floaty flipped and Alissa said she was stuck under it for a little while.  They were able to get out from under it and grab a hold of it as it floated away from the waterfall.  When I came down, I landed on a rock.  Just boom!  Dropped from I don't know how many feet and crashed right into a big rock!  I managed to stand up and get out of there but I lost my tube in the process (luckily it wasn't a rented one).  When we got on the shore, I noticed that my arm looked like it had two elbows and I was bleeding.  Since we've been home, I've found quite a few bumps and bruises.  I have a hugh one on the side of my left leg.  I'm glad that we didn't keep going because as we were getting out a man, that was getting in the river, told us about the next largest waterfall that was right around the corner.  We walked the tubes back to the place we rented them.  Kari, didn't have a terrifying experience and couldn't resist getting back in the river and floating a little after we got past the waterfall.  She convinced Damen to go with her.  The rest of us refused to get back in.

 Here are some pictures of us at the pool after the river troubles.  Much happier!

  Brinley loves going down the red slide.  That all she wants to do when we are here.  Lucky for her, cousin Damen liked it just as much.  So they went on it over and over and over again.

  Alissa loves jumping off the diving boards and going down the slides.