Current Creek 2022

 August 1st:

Monday, August 1st
Sydney and I drove down to Fillmore to pick up Keira, Lorelei, and Wyatt. They were going to go camping with us. We didn't get home til like 7 pm.
Jake and I had discussed camp seating, and we went ahead with the plan to have bucket seats for all the kids. We got the extra buckets (we were going to use 2 we already had) and the foam padding. When I got back with all the kids we started making the bucket seats. We let the kids pick out fabric from my collection. They cut out the foam circles. Jake cut out wood circles. And we had the kids help staple the foam and plastic (for water proofing) and fabric to the wood circle. Then Jake screwed the wood to the lid of the bucket (which we specifically got twisty ones).
The kids were able to use their bucket seats to store things they made or collected while we camped.
Then we checked Keira, Lorelei, and Wyatt's suitcases to make sure they had appropriate clothing for camping. They didn't. Keira, brought nice shirts. They didn't have any sweatshirts. Current Creek can go from cold to hot and hot to cold in minutes. So Jake and I decided before I left I needed to hit up Kid to Kid to get some extra clothing.
We blew up the blow up mattress in the living room for Lorelei and Wyatt, but Keira slept on the couch. Before everyone went to bed we all watched a movie.

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August 2nd:

Tuesday, August 2nd.
We got up and finished packing. I had been washing laundry as fast as I could. So we finally got the suitcases with our clothing packed. Jake was working. So I just started putting everything from my list on the front lawn. Blow up mattresses, tent, chairs, bucket seats, blankets, you name it I probably had it on the front lawn.
Jake and I knew we wouldn't have space for everything in the van since all the seats would be filled, so he had previously bought me a car top carrier. So that was filled to the brim. The car was packed so tightly there was no wiggle room.
Once everyone was ready, and in the car, and the car was packed, Jake was ready to drive over to Kid to Kid with me to get his siblings some stuff. He pulled out of the driveway, a car had come around the corner so I was waiting for them to go, but Jake was just telling me to go, so I back up in a hurry, not realizing how heavy the van was and didn't break in time. I ended up hitting my neighbors truck that was parked on the side of the road. He only had headlight damage, but my trunk door got crunched.
Jake and I started a fight right there in the street which continued across town to Kid to Kid. We fought for like an hour and half. It was pretty bad. But somehow we made a little bit of peace before I headed off, because both Jake and I knew that our fight couldn't not end before I left town for 4 days.

I finally got on the road at about 4:30 PM. I knew there wasn't gonna be a ton of daylight to get everything set up. The kids actually did pretty good on the road. Not a whole lot of fighting for having 6 kids in the van. Sydney ended up reading her whole first aid guide on the way up to camp.  
We finally finshed the two hour drive and pulled into the campsite.

As a side note, about a 3 months before when I told the family that I was bringing up Jake's siblings I was told that I would need to get my own site because we wouldn't have enough tent sites. So my campsite was around the bend from where everyone else was staying. After I parked, dad wanted to feed everyone while the food was warm instead of setting up while we still had light. So we headed to the trailer to eat first. Mom was coming up the next day, and Sarah was days away from having her baby, so they didn't come up at all.

When we were done eating, we headed back to the campsite, Shayla and my Uncle Jeff helped my dad and I get everything set up. It was pretty dark, so we had all 6 kids holding lights. Initally we were going to have a seperate tent for me and my kiddos and then Keira, Lorelei, and Wyatt were gonna be in different tent that my dad brought up. After we got both tents up and all of the gear in each tent, did we realize my dads tent still stunk like the dead mouse we found in it when we went camping down in Green River, UT and Arches earlier in the spring. It was such a terrible smell that we all ended up having to sleep in my tent. So Sydney and Lizzy were on one of the blow up mattresses, with William tucked up against the tent in just his sleeping bag. I slept on the floor between the mattresses, with Keira, Lorelei, and Wyatt on the other blow up mattress. Good thing they were both queen sized mattresses. So all of the suitcases and stuff were in the other tent. We left the windows open to help air it out over night. We decided that one tent would be for getting dressed and one would be for sleeping.
Dad waited for all the kids to get dressed and then helped me get them all up to the bathroom so they could brush their teeth and use the potty before we all headed to bed. After all the kids were in bed and asleep I took Uki and headed off to the bathroom to get myself ready for bed.
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*uploaded last to first*

August 3rd:

Wednesday, August 3rd.
The next day I woke up, and it wasn't terrible. I wasn't comfortable, but I wasn't uncomfortable, until Wyatt started to slide off the mattress and his feet and sleeping bag ended up in my face. Then we exited the tent to go to the other tent to change our clothing and I realized that I had left Uki tied up to a tree last night so he wasn't in our way and had left him outside all night. He was curled up so tightly and I realized he was scared and cold. Poor thing. I felt so bad. He immediately went to the bathroom after I untied him, and then he didn't leave my side for a few hours. After we all got changed, we headed around the bend to my dads trailer to have breakfast.

One thing I learned pretty early on is that Kiera and Lorelei were immediately afraid of any flying insects. A bee was flying around the table like they always are, and while we find them annoying if you ignore them or shoo them away, it's fine. I've never had a problem. But the girls were immediately scared and hid behind me any time anything flew by. It certianly got a little better as the days wore on, but that first day, they jumped and hid for every fly, bee, anything.

All the kids started exploring. Keira and Wyatt especially loved climbing down the mountian which meant all the kids were climbing up and down the side of the mountian. Although eventually they figured out the paved path.

Shayla had set up crafts on the table and so all the kids started making stuff. Shayla helped Kiera figure out weaving. William made some wood stick thing. The kids always enjoy crafting.

Shay spent some money on all the kiddos (I appreciate so much her helping me keep all the kids entertained) and got foam airplanes for the kids to throw.  

Then Shayla spent time teaching Sydney and Kiera how to do thread braclets.

After climbing the mountian side and crafting the kids were bored. So my kiddos and I took Keira, Lorelei, and Wyatt down to the dock. They spent a lot of time throwing rocks in the lake. Climbing around everywhere. Keira and Lorelei found old fishing line and tied a rock to it and threw it into the lake going "fishing" for the first time. Shayla joined us and it's always entertaining to watch Sienna playing in the water. I love taking pictures near water. It always feels so calming and relaxing.

We headed back to camp after a while. We got there in time to see Jeff with his fish. It was funny how grossed out Kiera was. 

We gathered around the table for dinner and then later when it got dark Shayla got out the crafting stuff again. The kids created pictures. We roasted marshmallows over the fire right before bedtime.


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August 4th:

Thursday, August 4th.
After waking up and getting dressed, we headed over to my parents trailer to have breakfast. After Breakfast Shayla and Susan started putting a "Jedi braid" in Sydney and Keira's hair. While those two were getting their hair done, the other kids were running around and playing with Beckham.
We headed down to the dock again, because the kids were getting bored. The boys threw more rocks. After a while I decided to take the kids on a little hike to the top of the dam. Guess it should have been more than an after thought because we didn't have water and Sydney was in sandels; but otherwise it wasn't too bad. 

After we walked back to camp, Shayla started working on Lizzy's hair. While Shayla was doing that, Gary offered us the boat, so Dad took me and Sydney and Keira and Wyatt on the boat ride first.
Keira and Wyatt had fun, we even got to see a beaver dam. After about 30 minutes, we headed back to shore to trade off the kids. While waiting for the other kiddos, Dad was teaching Sydney and Kiera how to skip rocks. Dad and I took Lizzy, Lorelei, and William out on the boat next. They had just as much fun. Lizzy kept leaning over the side to play with the water. 

After we all finished with the boat, we headed back to camp to start on dinner. Lizzy was helping my dad out with the scone dough. It started raining really good, so we all hudled in the trailer for a while. I thought at first I could keep Uki in the tent while it rained, but he was terrified of the thunder and knocked my dads tent down (we hadn't put any stakes in the ground with it because it was so dark that night, and dad didn't know if we were gonna keep tent up), so I had to take him back with me to the trailer, and I just sat on the ground while he crawled in my lap and laid down. 

After the rain, we got ready to go fishing while we still had daylight left. Keira, Lorelei, and Wyatt had never been fishing before, and since this was our last day here, it was our last opportunity to fish.
It took longer to get everything ready than I wanted, but we got down to the dirt patch. Dad and Grandma and Jeannette helped me get the kids all set up, and then dad and Shayla got in their float tubes. I didn't have fishing poles for all the kids so they had to trade off. Which made everyone impatient. I spent all of my time walking back and forth between all the kids making sure their poles and lines were still good and then having them switch over. No kid caught anything; but right before we were packing up to go because the sun was almost gone, grandma caught a fish, and had six adults all around her. Dad and Jeff ended up having to clean the fish because we couldn't get it off the hook in time and it ended up dying. 

After we got back from fishing and put everything away, we got a fire started, and let the kids cook smores. The whole extended family was around the fire, and we listened to Gary and Brad play their guitars and sing. Dad, Jeannette, Grandma, and Jeff all sang along with almost all the songs. It was so awesome to watch. We ended up leaving while they were still playing because I needed to get the kids ready for bed and asleep.

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August 5th:

 Friday, August 5th.
Got the kids ready for the day, and headed over to the trailer to eat breakfast.
Jeff and Brad were messin around on the guitars so I watched for a bit.
After breakfast I left the kids and headed back to camp by myself to start getting everything packed up. Jeff and Dad came to finish helping me sweep out the tents and take them down and get everything put on the roof top carrier that needed to be there. I packed the rest inside the van.
The rest of our time was spent trying to wait it out for the dutch oven dinner to be done. Mom kept pushing the time back. So the kids built dirt gardens and ran around, the girls sang, Shayla gave out the bubble guns she brought. William and I went on a scavenger hunt to take pictures of different things.
We finally ate and headed out close to five pm.
By the time I made it down into Heber and called Jake he was furious. I am glad that instead of fighting with him all I did was laugh, because otherwise things wouldn't have gone so smoothly.
He was so worried, and his anxiety set him off so badly, that since Lydia was living up in Heber he had her come after me to make sure I was ok. While the sentiment was sweet, I was super annoyed because now my mother and father in law were traipsing around in the mountains they had never driven in before close to dark. So I ended up turning around, got all the way back to the current creek turn off and knowing how late it was didn't want to go all the way back in to camp, headed the opposite direction and came out on the freeway and past Strawberry Reservoir. Called Jake when I got into town again, only to about ten minutes later have Jake say his mom was calling. So he hung up with me to talk to her. Turns out we only missed each other by fifteen minutes.
I didn't get home until about 9:30 pm. The kids were so good during that extra long drive. I was so tired though, I do not do well on long distance (over an hour) drives.
I was glad to finally be home.
Got all the kids showered while getting everything inside and the blowup mattress set up.

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Sienna started whining really badly, so Shayla and I were trying to figure it out. Turns out her hair got wrapped around the leash, and was pretty easy to just pull and untangle. But as you can see in the picture Shayla was freaking out, because at first it looked like Sienna's skin was caught in leash as well.

Mom was gonna take Sienna on a walk while Shayla was fishing, and that dog got out of her leash and ran away and the kids (who are faster than mom or I) were chasing her and we eventually were able to catch her. Mom was so worried, because at home Sienna loves to run away, but I don't think Shay ever found out.

August 6th:

Saturday, August 6th.
Lydia came down to the house to watch the kids while Jake and I drove to Fillmore to meet up with Laura and get the kids back to her.
On our way back home we stopped off in Santaquin for some ice cream at the Red Barn. We even did a little Christmas shopping for the kids.