Utah ( Warning: Picture Overload)

Early Friday morning the kids and I got on a plane for Utah for my brothers wedding.

All that stress about flying alone with two kids for nothing. They did great almost the whole way! What great kids I have!

Here are the kids on the way to the reception, which was Friday night. They were so exhasted after having been awake for about 12 hours already at this point (although Isaac did get a couple of small naps).

The Bride and Groom (Charlie and Rachel)

Maggie loved my bouquet!

This is all of the siblings in my family, minus one brother who is in Portugual on a mission. The picture with the whole family was blurry. Yes, for any who don't know, that baby is my brother, he is two months younger than Isaac. There are 12 children in my family.


The kids with their uncle Charlie.

The kids chillin. This didn't last very long, just about as long as it took to take the picture. The rest of the night Maggie was running around the yard while being chased by any one of her uncles and Isaac was crawling everywhere trying to get into anything he wasn't supposed to be getting into.

Me and my cute little babies.

Maggie loved the harp! She wanted to take a picture with when we were told it was okay she ran up and hugged it. She spend the next hour or so dancing around on the patio to the harp music. Great Grandpa Camp even stepped in as her partner for a while.

Isaac and Ben (my youngest brother) were the lucky ones who got to change their clothes right after pictures. They sure had a good time playing all night.

The picture on the right has to be one of my favorites of the night. I don't actually know what Rachel was making this face for (my sister Lauri was the one taking these pictures), I don't think it was becasue Charlie shoved the cake in her face, but we thought it was funny none the less. (Sorry Rachel, I had to post this)

The Wedding Ceremony was the next day, Saturday, at the Salt Lake Temple.

Here they are coming out of the temple. They are a really cute couple.

Her is a picture of my whole family, minus my brother Sam, who is in Portugual and of course my husband who had to stay home because he had patients to see. For any who are intersted from the front there are: Piper 3, Abbi 10, Elijah 6, Jacob 8 (behind Elijah and Maggie), Maggie 3, Laurakay 18; Behind: Niki 23, Isaac 10mo., Ben 8mo., Cindy 48 (my mom, sorry I had to put your age since everyone asks anyway), Mason 16 (hiding behind my mom), Rachel, Charlie 22, Hyrum 14, Tim 47 (my dad), Joe 12. (Ages are estimates since I can't keep track any more).

Maggie and Piper. They were good little friends. Piper kept telling everyone "this is my niece, Maggie" and Maggie nick-named Piper "Pipes".

On the left is Maggie and Piper with Great Grandpa and Grandma Camp (my moms parents). Maggie calls grampa "Big Grandpa" instead of great grandpa. I especially love what the wind did to grandpa's hair. On the right is Isaac with Aunt Lauri, who lived with us over the summer.

On Monday the plan was for the kids and I to go hiking.

Unfortunately our hike was a walk on a paved sidewalk. I looked up hikes online to find an easy one since I had one kid in a backpack and a three year old walking and I found a half a mile hike at Bridal Veil Falls. "Perfect" I thought. Only once we got there I couldn't find a trail anywhere other than the paved sidewalk to the bottom of the falls. I asked around and it sounds like the trail was closed after a resteraunt up on the second landing or so burned down. I did see a couple of guys on the second landing but my guess is they got there a way that probably wouldn't work with two kids. I was a little bummed that we didn't actually get to hike anywhere but we had fun anyway.






Despite the fact that I grew up in Utah I had never been to Bridal Veil Falls. I had driven by but never stopped. They were very beautiful.

Maggie had a blast just throwing rocks in the water. The water was icy cold but she didn't seem to notice or care at all. After I while I had to drag her out of the water to warm up her feet a little bit.




Isaac wanted to jump in the water and eat all the rocks. He managed to get a few to his mouth. So, despite no hiking it was fun and nice to be in the mountains.









Finally we headed home.

We were only gone a few days but it was exhasting and thankfully Maggie fell asleep on the plane just a few minutes after we took off. She even slept right threw landing in Albequrque and having people get off and then on the plane and then taking off again. She would move around and then fall right back to sleep. She finally woke up about 20 minutes before landing on Dallas but aside from those last twenty minutes it was an easy flight. Isaac just played and slept the whole time. He seems to like flying pretty well and he loves looking out the window, although the only time he got a chance was when we landed since Maggie had to have the window seat even though she didn't even look out it most of the time. It was a good trip but we are glad to be back home with Adam!

Mountain Top Sanity

Anyone who claims to know me well at all knows that I am a bit of a mountain junky. Well we've been in Texas a little over two years and I had been deprived of my addiction long enough, so I went to Colorado for 10 days to do some hiking. It had to be one of the best get-aways I have ever had.

The plans were to meet up with my buddy, Nate, in Denver then head to Lake City in Western CO where another friend, Russell was letting us use his family cabin. When I got to Denver Nate told me that he had to fix a mess that someone had created and would potentially cost his company $5 million if not resolved that week. Nate's a junior engineer for Boeing/Lockheed and unfortunately too good at what he does so he spent the week in Buffalo, NY and I traveled on Lake City without him.

Luckily the trip was also planned with Charles Berry, Associate Dean at Baylor, and we met up with one of his friends Bill Meredith. Most would laugh because I went hiking with 60 yr old men but it was actually refreshing to spend down time with mature company as opposed to the usual toddlers and infants. I also got some valuable insight on trust funds and retirement planning.

The routine was: a day of to aclimate, hike a 14er, day to rest, hike two 14ers, day to recoup, hike a 14er, head back.

HANDIES PEAK 14,048'

We chose what we thought would be the most doscile ascent for our first climb. Don't let those books fool you, the last stretch to summit is a killer. Because of the heavy winter snow and the very moist summer the mountains here were carpeted in wildflowers of all colors and varieties. Also, as is true with the other peaks we climbed, the views of the San Juan mountain range from up there was phenomonal. As we left the summit some mammoth thunder and lightning rolled in but we were luck to not get hit too hard with rain.

Here are the boys ready to hit the hillside. Those bright eyes and big smiles went away after about 2500 feet.

Don't let age fool you. That Dr. Berry is one tough guy. Nothing would keep him from climbing. After bruising his toes on the first day he did most the rest of the hikes in semi-formal leather dress shoes. Then he got bruised heels and blisters and still kept going.

SUNSHINE AND REDCLOUD 14,001' AND 14,034' (respectively)

Now this was a greusome day. Miles and Miles of switchback to get to the top of Redcloud Peak only to descend and reclimb Sunshine Peak over a mile away. That will wear you out, the only problem is that you have to return the way you came and reascend Redcloud. But you gotta do it because you just can't turn down two 14ers in one day.

UNCOMPAHGRE 14,309

The highest peak in the San Juan range, a real menecing-looking mountain because of the steep rocky slopes that comprise the final several hundred feet of ascent. The day we hiked there was such a low ceiling that the entire slope was covered in clouds. When we started up the rocky slope we could see about 30 yards ahead of us and by the time we reached the summit we were lucky to see more than 10 feet. The wind was bitter cold and at time I felt like a National Geographic photographer in the Arctic circle. Obviously there was no view because the cloud cover (very disappointing) but it was a great climb none the less. There was a sheer 500+ foot drop on one side and was terrifying and exhilerating to look over and see a straight drop into nothing but clouds. The defining part of the hike was the beautiful waterfalls that we passed.












































Sorry if the pictures are a little jumbled. I was trying something new and it didn't seem to work. But I think you get the idea. I loved the mountains and have no regrets. However, the time away really helped me remember how much I love my wife and family. To any wives reading, let your husbands get away for a while and they'll have time to realize how great they are and how little they deserve you. I wish I had the time to write praises to my wife, but let me just tell you, no where in all the earth could I find a more kind and virtuous woman than my Niki.

To end I'll just throw in a couple of pictures for fun. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me so I rely on the pictures of others to relay and preserve the memories.