Annual Stevenson Family Reunion

This year the Stevenson Family Reunion was at the new Heber Valley camp owned by the church (used mostly for girls camp). This year it was my parents turn to be in charge. We took our little family up Friday after Rob got off work and after Aivree's nap. We set up Anisten's DVD player in the truck so she could watch something on the ride (we usually do that if the ride's over an hour, I know, lucky girl. It's also for our sanity too, haha.) Well Aivree kept craning her neck around trying to watch the movie too. The last time I weighed Aivree she was at 19.2 lbs, so we decided that was close enough to turn her around. So we made a stop at Target on the way up and got Anisten a new booster seat so Aivree could have Anisten's old one (poor second child, always has the hand me downs). So then everyone was happy :)

Ani in her new super cool pink seat and Aivree can now see more than the sky while she's in the car (you can see how she won't take her eyes off that DVD screen).

The ride went pretty good except for a few bouts of whining here and there (mostly from Rob...haha, j/k). We rounded the corner to begin up the big hill to the camp and there was a deer right there to welcome us. We yelled at Ani to look at the deer, but little did we know we woke her up! She was dozing and so she bleary-eyed tried to see what we were talking about, but fell quickly back asleep.

What do you want mom and dad?

The camp was really beautiful and nice. We had 4 cabins that slept 16 each and a bowery with bathrooms and showers. There was also a firepit and sand volleyball area. We ate a yummy dinner when we got there and then began the Washer Toss Tournament!

Everyone was randomly paired up with a partner and the playing began. I was paired with Savana and we lost our first game. :( We went over twice so our opponents automatically won. They ended up going to the finals and winning too!! Rob and his partner Camie also went to the finals and won second to the team we let beat us, Janica and Kresta. Good job guys...it was all luck! haha

Here is Rob playing his first Washer Toss game

It was pretty windy that night so we weren't allowed a campfire. So we all went to bed around 10 pm. I'd put Aivree to bed at around 9 pm and tried to put Anisten down shortly after, but she was still awake when we went to bed. She fell asleep shortly after that though, so we were all able to get a wonderful nights sleep!

haha, Yeah right! Poor Anisten had a cough (we hesitated to go overnight because of it) and at about 2 am she began coughing and couldn't get back to sleep. She started whining about her bed and that she was uncomfortable. This wouldn't have bothered me so much except for the fact that we were sharing a cabin with my parents and my sister and her family. I knew that she was keeping all of them up and I felt horrible about it. I was eventually able to get her to calm down and she came and slept in my bed with me...at which point Aivree began talking in her sleep! It was so hilarious because she sounded so happy and she was saying all the words she knows which was really cute, but it was just so loud! So Rob finally gave her a binkie to get her to quiet down. Ani and I were too busy giggling to sleep while she was talking like that. :) So shortly after she quieted down, we were all finally able to get some sort of sleep despite so many people sleeping in the same room. Isn't that the way it is with camping trips? It seems you always miss out on sleep.

Anyway, the next day we woke up to these cute little critters everywhere scrounging for food.
Anisten loved to feed them her goldfish crackers.

Aivree was a pretty happy girl that morning. She loves to be outside and she did get a pretty good night's sleep for the most part

Rob took Anisten on a hike that morning and they saw a deer together. So when Aivree was taking a nap I went on a little hike with her to see if we could see one too.
This girl loves to hike! She just kept on going up and down the hills and over the little streams. I had no idea where she was leading me, but she seemed to know where she was going. :)
We got to see the deer too (pretty sure it was the same one)! It's things like that that make camping trips worth it. I sure love my Ani girl (even when she keeps me up all night) :)

Later the adults were able to do a Challenge Course while my parents stayed and did activities with some of the little ones. We got to go on this really cool swing as well as some other group-bonding-problem-solving activities (I'm not sure what to call those exactly). Here's a video of me on the swing. It was a blast!

While I was swinging a moose walked right by us through the trees. I can't believe how much wildlife we saw up there. It was awesome.

After the Challenge Course we went and had lunch and helped clean up the camp and then headed home. It was so much fun to see everyone and spend time with our family. My parents did a good job putting the trip together. Needless to say, we all slept very well that night!