Oh Mama...

Palisades State Park. The view from our camp spot...
Before the Snow.

On Mother’s Day weekend, we took our new little trailer down to a place called Palisades State Park to meet mom and dad for a weekend of camping. It was so nice to have Scott home for a Saturday – best present of all! The park is really lovely with a small lake, a golf course, a playground and lots of places to hike. We saw deer walking up the mountain just outside our trailer which was really cool. It's right near the Manti-LaSal National Forest which apparently has great hiking and ATV trails. Definitely worth heading back there again to do some more exploring when we have more time.

The boys tried their luck at fishing. They didn’t catch any fish but they did find out what a 5-year-old’s attention span for sitting still in a tiny boat waiting for something to bite. 42 minutes. And that was a stretch! Tagg really enjoyed helping Papa with the bait and hooks and getting the fishing poles set up. More than he enjoyed the fishing, actually.

I got a new camera for my birthday so I thought I'd test it out on my little supermodel. She struck this mermaid pose all on her own. Yikes?

Of course, she also makes these faces instead of rocking her "princess smile" as directed.

  Saturday was so lovely. I went for a nice run. The first 2 ½ miles were gorgeous and all downhill, which made the return trip a little rough! Gravity is my friend when I run! We went for a walk, played in the park, collected sticks for a fire. We just couldn’t figure out why so many people were heading out on a Saturday afternoon. Seemed like a lot of work for just one day of camping. But the fishing tournament was over by mid-afternoon so maybe they really did just come for some sort of fishing trophy.

And then we looked at the weather report for Sunday. It was a snowflake. Snow? In May? No way. So we played some cards and washoes, barbecued burgers and dogs, enjoyed some of mom’s famous potato salad and then lit the fire and made smores. And it kept getting colder and colder, and windier and windier.

My amazing mother. She is such an inspiration. The epitome of grace, patience, good humor
and a great cook to boot. Not to mention that she kills us all at washoes.

Of course, Scott did have a little handicap.

This one might qualify for Awkward Family Photos. It was a nice thought!

Family photo. This was cuter in my mind. Such a picturesque spot.

They love splashing and jumping in the water,
and finding and throwing skipper rocks.

Family selfie on a little hike.

By 9pm, we decided it was time to head indoors to watch a movie and get the little ones to bed. By 10:30 the wind was gusting so hard the trailer was literally rocking, and it was pouring rain. I woke up around 5am and it was so quiet. I thought, “Nice…the storm must have passed.” Or it was snowing. By the time we rolled out of bed, there was about 8 inches of snow on the ground! It was dumping! Pretty funny. I guess when the weather says “snowflake” you should take that seriously! 

Luckily we brought some winter gear for the kids.
Mom and dad did not fare as well!

Someone was really looking forward to the fire!

Smores! Finally!

After. As advertised. Snowflake.

My little snow bunnies.

The kids made me the most awesome gifts, a little frame with a gorgeous photo of Sloane and Tagg planted me some pansies and they both wrote sweet books about Mom. Apparently Wendy’s is my favorite restaurant (so not true), they both know my real age (which I’ve been trying to hide from them for years!), Tagg knows I like it when he helps with chores (and he likes earning money), and they both like it when I buy them stuff. Huh. We might need to work on that one!