Payson Lakes

We headed out of town on June 23 for a week long camping trip in the Wasatch mountains. We were finally able to take our camper on a long excursion and it was a lot of fun. We went to Payson Lakes, not too far from Payson, Utah.

Raef and Zach slept in a tent by the campfire and the rest of us hunkered down in the trailer. I have to say that camping sure is a lot more fun for me when I can sleep on a real bed.

The weather was absolutely beautiful. We were very fortunate.  I made sure to come prepared with things for us to do.  One of my main purchases was an inflatable boat.  The lake was small and close to our campsite. It was perfect for our little family.  Here is everyone on the maiden voyage. The kids were really excited.

 When you are unplugged and away from everything, it makes you do stuff you normally don't do. We started playing board games again.  The favorite for this trip was Rummikub.  The kids loved it. Even Eli and Harry got in on the action. Harry would pick out my tiles for me. He loved it.

We also went on a pretty long hike around Payson Lake and then down to the lower campground.

I brought colored pencils and notebooks and the kids stopped to do a little nature journaling.  They absolutely loved it.

But the highlight of the camping trip was bug discoveries. Harry, Eli, and Julia just loved finding bugs and petting them and watching them.  On our hike, they found a fuzzy caterpillar and they were all smitten with it.

The boys also had fun just playing in the lake.  The water was pretty cold, but they seemed to have fun all the same.

Then Rinar did a little stand up comedy routine. He was in the water trying to find a "boat" and he was cracking up all the kids. They laughed so hard. One of his boats was a shoe, or a hat, or a stick. Whatever. It didn't matter. He was so darn silly and the kids just ate it up.

 Another fun activity was rollerblading and bike riding. They really enjoyed that.  They would just zoom around on a circular course, over and over again.

And then we did some action shots. This was a lot of fun too.  My kids really like to take pictures. And as soon as I take their picture, they like to see the results.

By Wednesday, we were pretty darn stinky. So we headed back to town and went to the city pool to swim all afternoon and take some showers, with soap!  It was a blast. The Payson city pool is very nice. They have a lazy river and a kiddie playground/slide, and two large slides.  It was a nice change of pace from our mountain retreat. We were also able to go out and eat pizza. Yummy!

On Thursday, we packed up and drove the rest of the Mt. Nebo loop, which is absolutely breathtaking, and then headed to Manti for the Mormon Miracle Pageant.  We got there pretty early and had a lot of time to kill. It was so hot, I thought I was going to die. So we went to the public library and killed some time there, in a nice air conditioned facility.  The kids loved reading books, so it worked out well for all of us.  Then we had dinner at a church next door. It was a fundraiser for the community and was typical Mormon fare: turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, a dinner roll, ice water, and a chocolate iced chocolate cake. Typical, but satisfying.

We parked our trailer across the street so that we could just stay the night because the show didn't even start until 9:30.  I had no idea how my littles would do.  They are usually asleep by 8pm.  But they all stayed awake until the last 30 minutes.  But they sure were zonkered by the time we carried them all back to the trailer. It was a good thing we decided to stay the night.

The pageant was wonderful and I am glad that my kids could experience it.

We had an enjoyable time together on our camping vacation. I am grateful for the time I could spend with my little family.