The mountains, the rolling hills, the meadows, the daffodils...and the mosquitoes...

Two weeks before we left Utah for our new home in Missouri, we went camping with my parents and sister in American Fork Canyon. I will freely admit that I'd pushed for this to happen, but my parents are pretty game for camping most of the time, and Jeremy is always game to make me happy--especially when I'm preg-a-nant. So we loaded everything up into our cars and my parents' swank tent-trailer and drove an arduous 20 minutes into the canyon.

The site was lovely, and the distance was ideal for my dad, who had to drive home to work during the day. We stayed for two nights, and I think of the seven people in attendance, our average level of enjoyment, on scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most fantastic, ranged from a low of about .05 to a high of 10.

The lowest of the lows was me--and probably my mom--when we were abandoned with my sister and Jonathan for the better part of a wretchedly hot day with no car and no possible means of escape. Added to the wretched heat were the swarming mosquitoes who found my flesh desperately appealing. I finally took Jonathan into the trailer, stripped him down into his shorties, and played about a million slow-motion games of Crazy Eights with him. My mom kept coming in and making me drink water. Megan sat in the shade and read a book (which is why she probably wasn't feeling the .05 like my mom and I. And Jonathan loves being in his underwear and seems more or less impervious to heat, so he was pretty happy.

Of course, I have to give Jeremy a shout out, since one of his lowest lows happened to correspond to what was probably one of Clara's highest highs (though that's hard to accurately describe, since I have never seen a happier camper--literally--than my Clara). Jeremy surprised Clara with a trip up to Timpanogos Caves. She was so excited to go, and probably would've hiked most of the quite steep trail up and down if the ranger hadn't given so dang many stern warnings about rockslides, snakes, mountain lions, and other sure-fire-tales-of-death-and-maiming. So Jeremy carried her on his shoulders the whole way up and the whole way back. This was happening while I was bordering on heat exhaustion back at camp. By the time he got back, he could barely walk. But Clara was absolutely thrilled with her excursion. In fact, in the first cave, the ranger asked for volunteers to identify the formations on the wall. After several incorrect answers from the other tourists, Clara bravely raised her hand and said, "Those are fossils." She was right. That's my good little geologist.

Other than those long and painful hours--and later than night when my dad melted the anti-reflective coating on his glasses while cooking foil dinners, which he hates to make and which I also requested ("Seriously," he said, "I could sautee the same ingredients in a pan with the same taste and a lot less effort")--we had a pretty good trip. Jonathan and Clara loved hiking and exploring, and Jonathan in particular was always happy to sit on a bench and watching the rushing water in the creek. Megan is always great fun to be around, and my parents are great about making things enjoyable and fun for their offspring. Plus, my mom will do just about anything for a legitimate excuse to make S'Mores. Seriously, she's an absolute fiend.

I'm really glad we went camping, especially since I don't see myself (at this point) becoming much of a Missouri camper--unless I somehow come to grips with relentless humidity, chiggers, and not having actual mountains to camp in. I miss the arid West already (but am pleased to report that we seem to have largely replaced mosquitoes and hornets with fireflies).

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I like this picture, because even though I have no makeup on and am really quite filthy, I look deceptively slim. I could show you some more accurate pictures, but I won't (like the one of me hiking downhill with Jonathan, which Jeremy took from a vantage point below me, despite the fact that I have told him countless times to never take pictures of me from below when I'm pregnant).


I like this picture because it is classic Meg-man. Love it.




Jonathan and Clara were perpetually sticky the entire time. My mom is the kind to wipe messy children down; we are the kind to reduce stickiness by covering it with dirt and dust.




And I had to end with this one, because I couldn't decide whether I liked this one or the opening photo most. They're a good-looking pair, those two!