I Heart Camping

Very few things in life get me as excited as a camping trip.  I grew up 2 hours from Lake Tahoe and 2 hours from Stinson Beach.  Given a choice... I will pick the mountains over the beach just about anytime. 

(Unless it involves a beach in Maui.)

Friday night we headed to the mountains to have a campout with our Church group.  It was a lot of fun, even though we were the last ones to arrive and had to set up in the dark.  (We are getting quite experienced at that, too.)  Thank goodness some friends of ours took our tarp up and saved us a spot for our tent, so we didn't have to search around in the dark for a place to put it.

 Saturday morning was cold and gorgeous up in the Arizona mountains.  Who knew parts of AZ could kinda look like Tahoe?  I love it, even though it makes me homesick!  Brayden and I didn't get off to a fab start on Saturday morning.  He was crying and I was irritated that he woke up at 6 a.m. crying when Eric and the big kids didn't come to bed until almost midnight.  They were having too much fun playing Capture the Flag out in the woods.  (One bad thing about a Ward Campout... your nearest neighbors can hear everything going on in your tent in the late night or early morning hours.)  Let's just say I was not my finest "mothering self" and they heard it all.  But, they are the kind of friends who don't judge those kind of things... they were probably just thinking, "glad it's not me...."

The boys enjoyed playing football with some of the men...

Making the trek to the porta-potties...

I thought this was funny...

A seasoned scout... he slept outside and slept right through most of the morning noise.  I wish my kids would sleep this heavy on camping trips!

Megan helping out with the little tykes... By the way, what do you think of her "bangs"?

I love this little girl, and this look she gave me was so hilarious.  But it speaks volumes about her character.... she's got sass!

The breakfast crew... they were awesome... they cooked, served and cleaned up.  All while the women sat around and gabbed and kept an eye on the kids and the fire.

This little beauty proves it's never too soon to take them camping.  She was an angel the whole time!

Brayden got the award for the dirtiest kid.  He was covered in dirt and filthy, which was made worse by his meltdown in the tent, which produced a multitude of boogers to cement the dirt into the skin.

Campfire art... the kids figured out they could heat up the marshmallow roasting sticks, and then use them to make designs in the foam plates... some of them turned out really cool.

As everyone was packing up, I became very sad... I didn't want to leave the beauty and the cold air to head home again to the triple-digit-heat of home.  I was hoping to stall our departure as long as possible, but the men were motivated by the promising afternoon of BYU football on TV.  I guess 24 hours in the mountains is better than nothing, right?

Right.

The Name of the Song Says It All...

Two more weeks of September. Two more weeks of 100 degree weather. It's still hot in October, but September is the hardest. Monsoon is gone, over, done. Monsoon this year was a total bust. We had next to no rain, not a decent dust storm, and barely any thunder or lightning.

I can't watch NYC news right now. It's fall already in many parts of the country... they are starting to wear sweaters, and the leaves will be changing colors... It's just too depressing to realize that here, the leaves never change colors!

Fall is my favorite season, and it's so hard to skip it here. We maybe get fall for about 2 weeks. Maybe....

Allergy season is in full swing too. My sinuses are in total revolt and it's not making me a happy camper. After three straight days of sinus headaches, I'm ready to finally break out the neti pot. Ugh...

So, if you don't mind, I'll go to sleep and someone can "wake me up when September ends...."

Tax Break

If you are an Arizona Resident, make sure you donate your $400 to your local schools before the end of the year. You can then claim it as a tax refund on your state taxes in just a few weeks. I love this tax law here... I get to send $400 to my kids schools (I can even specify the exact amount I want to go to each school and the program I want it to go to.) the school gets my donation, I get a $400 credit on my state taxes and there's no government red tape getting in the way between my checkbook and the school. You don' t have to have kids in school to claim this tax credit. As one radio commercial states, "It's the biggest no brainer in the history of mankind!"