Memorial Day Weekend

Finally, here is the scoop! We took the trailer and bikes out to Five Mile for the entire weekend. The kids were so excited to go camping for the whole weekend. They were in shock that we were going to miss church though. Here is our campsite. Normally we go to Strawberry for this weekend, but with the weather on the cool side, we stayed closer to home. My little brother, Justin, from Reno, NV, met us out there. He spent the entire week prior in Elko, NV, so the 3 hours to be with us was a no brainer. I am so glad that he made the extra effort to come and see us. The kids love him and his crazy riding. They call him Uncle "Bustin" because that is what I call him. When he was younger, he was always "bustin" up things! This is Justin with Katie, Kelli and their friend, Sydnee.Saturday, our friends, the Douglas, joined us. Before the big boys went out on a ride, all of us watched them jump the road. My brother is crazy! He had his bike pinned in 4th gear and totally clearing this little bump in the road. This is Justin clearing the jump over 8 kids-3 of them mine, 3 of the Douglas kids and 2 onlookers!Cory tried his hand at jumping. He was a little nervous about the whole thing. He doesn't jump, he just rides hard and fast and crashes, a lot! So the jumping thing is new to him. He caught the jumping bug though, and got better as the weekend went on. Here is one of his better jumps. He didn't get the air that Justin got, but at least he got some!And of course, Tim had to try the jump too!The "big boy" ride ended up in our friend, Mike Douglas, spending a couple of nights in the hospital. Towards the end of the ride, he went off a jump wrong, and landed badly. He came down on his right side, breaking a bone in his hand, breaking three ribs and collasping his lung. So while his wife took him to the ER, Cory and I watched 3 of their kids. This is when we had rattlesnake with our dinner. The kids spent the night with us, so we had 10 in our trailer. Cory and Justin were going to sleep outside, then it started raining on us, HARD! So, we all crammed inside for the night. It was a long night! This is Mak and her friend Haylee. Aren't they just the cutest? They entertained the little girls for us and puttered around camp on their bikes. Sunday, my brother left to get back to Reno. He had to work Monday, or so he said. Tim and Mak's friends stayed with us another night, while Kelli and Katie's friend went home. Early afternoon, we all went out for a ride and ended up at an old quarry pit watching a guy drive his Rhino through the mud!Ended up, we knew the driver from our ward, so he gave all the older kids a ride through the mud! They loved it so much, that they got 2 rides. After, they were so dirty, that we let them play in the mud pond, even the twins. WOW! Here they are after the experience!When we finally got back to camp, Cory started our dinner while I washed the kids off. This is how we ran out of water. Washing off six very muddy kids takes a lot of water! And, we should have filled the tank on a flat surface, not a slanted one! Lesson learned! Our dutch oven chicken just finished cooking when the biggest storm of the weekend hit. We had hail, thunder, lightening, and rain for the rest of the night. Our fire was gone, so we headed inside to play games and watch a movie. Then the battery went dead and I wasn't about to run the truck for 2 hours just to watch a movie. So, we went to bed, by 9:30!
Monday morning, we cleaned up camp, then went back to the pit so the kids could ride around. Don't worry, we didn't let them go back through the mud. We were home by 3 and cleaned up by 6. All in all, it was a great weekend with lots of fun memories. Copper went with us and had a good time. He got bit by some ants, got muddy and got to eat a hotdog! Good times for us all!