We decided to pull the girls out of school on a Friday morning to go on a Cinco de Mayo trip. I hate when Americans don't give that day it's proper attention. I found a nearbyish state park doing some events for the weekend so we rented a lake front cabin and threw a quick suitcase together. An hour later we were gone. In my haste, I overlooked the fact that we would need to provide our own bedding. After driving an hour to get there (through the most lovely country side in Utah) we realized my mistake. Now we had a little situation and as I was making expensive arrangements to fix my oversight, Braden got on the phone and solved our problem is the coolest of ways. Right before we arrived at the state park, we noticed some private property that was astounding. It had tee pees, and cabins and permanent tents and a playground. Braden found their number online, and the lady said it would be okay to rent something from them for a night. This place was a dream. We were the only ones there and had free reign of the whole place. The girls played in the Indian village, we searched for snakes in the river, played on the playground, cooked over a fire, and picked flowers and chased butterflies. And then we took a hot shower and slept in a bed. It was everything magical about camping without the most miserable parts. The couple that owned the house gave our money back upon hearing that Braden was about to deploy and said that I was welcome back for free with the kids while he was gone. We were so grateful to have stumbled upon this little gem of a place and the generous people who gave our family one last chance to be together, away from everyone and everything. That is always my favorite place to be.
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| dirty ground dweller |
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| Elise eating a smore. Her smore had more....more dirt, more sticks, more weeds.... |
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| What's wrong little Hitler? |
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