Ward Campout 2011

Friday we had our Ward Campout at Usery Mountain Park in Apache Junction. The Ward decided to have it close to home since not everyone likes to camp, and it would allow people to drive out that evening and go home if they’d like and still be able to come back in the morning for breakfast and games. 🙂 We decided to rough it..but as you can see, my idea of roughing it means loading up a twin mattress and sleeping in the van with Alayna, while the men sleep in a tent. LOL! In my defense, my foot is still banged up and I have been in a boot for about a week….(this mattress idea was genius though and even when I’m not banged up, we’ll be taking a mattress from now on! LOL!) The kids were super excited to go camping. We haven’t been camping as a family in several years. In fact, Alayna has never gone! We even took Sammy with us!

We’ve never been to Usery Mountain Park. Let’s just say it’s not the type of camping we typically would choose. It was all desert..which is beautiful to look at but…..

not so much fun when you get one of these babies in your leg, back, paw, or hand. Walker actually bent down to take a thorn out of his shoe to only lose his balance, and he threw his hand back into the air and threaded a cactus needle through the palm of his hand. Fun times!! Poor guy.. 🙁

It was an adventure for sure. Sammy thought he wanted to come but little did he know how we people ‘ruff’ it..get it? ‘Ruff’ it. I kill me!! Hahaha! He really wanted to go home the first night. It was pretty funny.

Eli and Ty found a safe way to pass the time. 🙂 We were on our own for dinner that night. Our good friend’s the Campbell’s made an out-of-this-world steak dinner. I’m still dreaming about that steak! YUM!!! The Ward put on a little devotional and we had dutch oven cobblers of pretty much every berry or fruit you can think of. It was de-lish! The next morning theWard made breakfast for everyone and then it was time for the games. The theme was a “Horseless Rodeo”. 🙂

They started out with the traditional sack race. Check out Walker going full speed! 🙂

The men’s race was pretty fun to watch. Everyone wants to see their Dad win. 😛

I love the contorted faces they make! Hahaha!

Next up was the Women’s sack race. I have to explain that it was killing me not to be able to play any of the games. I love games! So I decided to try the sack race with a bit of a head start…and I won!!! LOL!! I’m pretty fast even in a dumb boot! 😛

The Men’s race was kinda crazy!

They put two poor souls on the bucket to prevent any cheating and they about lost their lives! LOL!

Eli is the runner in the family. He’s also very competitive. He was excited for the race. 🙂

Did you see that blur??? 😛 He got a full size candy bar for winning!

Next up was barrel racing. This was a team event. Our horse kept losing his head! Hahaha!

Eli’s game face! Love it!

Ride ’em cowboy! 😉

The next game was called ‘Branding’. It was another team event. You had to run down to the other end, grab a giant spoonful of (expired) flour from someones year’s supply, and get back to your teammate and swat their butts with the flour, leaving them ‘branded’.

As you can see…Jared really likes to stick his butt waaaay out there to make sure you don’t miss..and Dave really likes to give a whipping with his brand! LOL!

I tried to take a cute picture of Alayna and myself, but you can see how well that worked out. 😛 She was too shy to play any of the games so I had to make sure we got at least one picture to prove she was there.

Handsome fella!

For the final game they had one of the older boys be a human pinata. This was hilarious to watch!!

Those kids weren’t going to let him get away!!!

We had a good time, but decided that if the Ward decides to desert camp again…we’re gonna skip it and head up to the pines! 🙂