The last is the best

I thought I would end the posts about the family campout by putting on my bloggy some pictures I took of the fun moments around camp.
Amy, Gina, Bryan (Gina's boyfriend), and Andi looking at magazines and talking about the latest stuff. *Amy,Gina, and Andi are three of my sisters. We had to stop on the roadside on the way to the campground for Jonathan to use the bathroom. What? You can't SEE the bathroom? Neither could we, but he dropped his shorts and went anyway!
Kelsey (who is 13) riding on Shiney's (who is 4) bike. She was just a teensy bit big for it and that is what made it fun!
Sidney cuddling up with Bryan. She seems to have a bit of a crush on him. She would just coo and almost giggle every time she saw him or he held her.
Sidney standing up in the camping chair with her binkie hanging out one side of her mouth. She is such a goof!

Legacy

So, in case you are wondering.....which you probably aren't.....but I will tell you anyway- this campout that my family goes on every year is just my family. My parents and my siblings. It is the Jay Cole Family Campout and we started it the year Mike and I got married. So we have done this for 9 years now. Every year one of us children is in charge of it. We plan where it will be and organize it all. Each of us kids (and our spouses/children) is in charge of one meal for the whole group. It makes it nice that way because we all eat together. My brother is big into Dutch oven cooking, so we almost always can count on something in that form from them. This is my mom and dad. They're not grumpy- they just didn't know I was taking pictures and didn't know to smile. I like candid pictures that way!
They are good with their grandkids. This is my dad with my nephew Shiney. They like to hang out and Shiney is grandpa's little shadow.This is my mom with my nephew Caleb on the teeter-totter that was at the campground. He wanted to play on it and she was a good sport to do it with him.
This is them with all their grandkids minus one. Jarom is 21 and was working and couldn't come to the campout. But all the rest of them were there. Good times!!

*extra points if you can find all of my knuckleheads in the picture

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY (except I'm gonna explain it anyway)

We camped out by the Challis Hot Springs. We got unlimited swimming and we were in the pool almost every chance we could be. I had changed Sidney into her swimmy suit and the other girls and I were putting ours on when I looked over at Sidney on the bed and noticed that she was trying to put my bra on! I laughed so hard. Then I yelled for one of the girls to grab the camera for me so I could take a picture. When we all got changed I took the camera and went out and showed my mom and sisters and anybody else who wanted a peep and proclaimed loudly, "THAT is totally gonna go on my blog!"

Garbage Can dinner

Someone from Bulgaria and Hong Kong visited my blog yesterday. I guess these camping posts are more exciting than I thought. Just kidding. Maybe.

Every year at my family's campout we do a Dutch-oven Dessert cook-off. This year it was decided to forgo the dessert part (seems everyone is on a diet or its too much sweets or some such nonsense) and the children would vote for their favorite meal and the family that was in charge of that meal would get the coveted trophy until next years campout. My sister Amy and her family were in charge of providing Saturday night's dinner and they made Garbage Can dinner. No lie. It was so cool. They bought a metal garbage can. Inside of it was placed the husks of corn on the cob, followed by layering of different kinds of veggies and meats. They used chicken, little smokies, polish sausages, zuchinni, sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, onions, red peppers, green peppers, potatoes, corn on the cob (broke in half), and seasoned it with salt and pepper and season salt. Then she put about 6 inches of water in it and put it on their camp chef stove and let it come to a boil. Once it is boiling it doesn't take long for all the veggies to get steamed and the meat to cook.
When the veggies are done, you drain the water off.
And then dump the contents of your garbage can dinner on the table.

The kids went wild for it. No surprise that it was the winner of the favorite meal! The best part was that there is so much in it, that you just take what you like and leave the rest for someone else.
Fun, huh???

The "incident"

On Friday, day 2 of our campout, Meghan went out in to adjacent field with Grampa Cole, Uncle Lorin and the older boy cousins who were playing baseball. Grampa and Lorin were hitting them to the boys who were catching the balls and throwing them back. It was a game called 500 or something like that.

My kids are not the most sportsy-coordinated kids around. They are great at dance and gymnastics (must be their Ukrainian blood...), but they kinda stink at actual sports stuff. I was not really surprised when Rachel went out by Meghan and tried to catch and got hit in the knee with the baseball. It left a nice big mark that I forgot to get a pic of. Meghan stayed out there after Rachel's accident for a long time. I seriously kept expecting her to get bored. And then it happened. She got clocked right in the face by the ball that she was trying to catch. I took this picture about 1/2 hour after she got hit because as Mike and I were walking back to our campsite with her, I noticed that one of the lenses had fallen out of her glasses and we all had to look for it in the grass. Thank heavens that Gramma and her sharp eyes (ok, actually her bifocals) saw it in the grass.

Today Meghan sports a smaller bruised area above her eye. It is not swollen anymore, but the inside of her eye next to her nose is black and blue. I don't think she is going to try to play baseball anytime soon.

Just a teaser to get you to come back and read all about our fun camping trip this past week. Oh yeah, baby! I've got some great stories.

Campfire, dirt, kids, and more dirt.........what do these things have in common?


We are going CAMPING! Can't wait! My family goes every year on a big 4-5 day campout as our family reunion. It is so fun and we have been to lots of different places over the years. This year we are going to a HOT SPRINGS, so we can swim too! The kids are so excited that they can't stand it, and I just want to get out of Dodge.

Anyway, look forward to the pics when we get back and be thankful that I posted something so that my stupid twinkie story is not the only thing for you to read. ;)