ASPEN GROVE TAKE THREE

This is probably the most beautiful place to do pottery - suspended over a mountain river. It was seriously loud, but seriously beautiful. Too bad I'm THE WORST at pottery. There was plenty of Unchained Melody references (who said we were mature?) but alas I have no natural talent for pottery. I had to re-throw (Is that even the right way to say it? Whatever.) like a gazillion times and what I ended up with was perfectly described by my sister-in-law Brook, "Great. You can have that on your coffee table and put six M&Ms in it." My dreams were crushed! Just kidding, because she was right. I ended up throwing it away before I left Utah. All that remains is the following picture.



One day the adults did a hike to Stewart Falls, which was also the same day as the kids groups. On our path we passed a few of the nieces and nephews yucking it up.


It was one of the hotter days we were there, and we all had to rush back to get to our various art classes. But it was worth the trek, if would have been sad to spend a week in the mountains and not hike at all.








One of my favorite things we did was shoot air rifles. Brad even got a certificate for hitting five of his shots within the size of a quarter.

I did not receive that same certificate.

ASPEN GROVE - TAKE TWO

Leave it to Brad to try and make his food LOOK gourmet at all times. What a nerd.


This is an example of the mayhem. 34 people in one cabin was quite a lot. We didn't even have room for chairs (notice them stacked up in the corner?). But it was worth it to stay in the family cabin because we honestly had the best view in the place.

One of the days they had a family fun day with a ton of game stations all over the field. This is where the competitive Carn gene came out to play. Seriously, it was out of control.


At one station we had to gather water with cups from this fire hydrant thing spewing water that was presumably pure mountain runoff because it was the coldest thing I've ever experienced. But we were determined to lose limbs if it meant filling our bucket up the most. I told you this was serious business folks.


Carson as Atlas Shrugged.




Should I even admit that at a few stations we let the kids do a fun "practice round" before the adults stepped in and performed the one that counted? Oh the shame.


This is the adults performing the relay that "counted."




In this picture you can kind of see how amazing our view was. We were up on a hill above the camp with an awesome panorama of the mountains.


Morgan and Cassidy hugging it out.


Here is the only family picture we got from the entire 3 weeks we were in Utah, and I don't even like it that much. Oh well. Doesn't it look like those mountains are fake? Yeah, that's how gorgeous it was, so amazing that it looks made up.

ASPEN GROVE

During our first week in Utah we had a family reunion at Aspen Grove. For those of you that don't know what/where that is - it's awesome. It's a week long family camp up Provo Canyon and it's owned by BYU - which means 98% of everything is run by BYU students. The absolutely best part is that every age under 19 has a group that they attend all day (minus lunch) - but you still feel like you're spending plenty of time with family. The beauty of the kids groups is that the adults can then do a multitude of things or nothing. It's totally their choice. But either way they can enjoy a vacation as well. It's fantastic. Brad and I: swam, did the ropes course, pottery, hiked, water color class, pen making class, volleyball, shuffleboard, badminton, paintball, air rifle, pin pong, ate way too much creamery ice cream. The weakest part was the food but there was always something to make the meal work (hint: chicken fingers stolen from the kids bar makes for a killer chicken salad). They also had plenty of family game activities in the evening and the Carn clan even won a few awards at the end of the week (all together we are mindbogglingly competitive). All in all, it was a great week and we would do it again in a heartbeat.

One of the things we did just as the Carn family was have a talent show, which was mostly for the kids but the grandparents couldn't resist getting in on the fun.

The elder girl cousins did a rendition of "Pants on the ground." Never gets old.


Spencer tried to outdo his "Eye of the Tiger" performance from the previous year... us adults might have put a little too much pressure on him.

Three year old Ella sang a beautiful song for us.

Magician Ethan did some magic.


Logan stole some Diet Coke from his Aunt Brooke.


Cooper entertained Finley in the back of the room. He's such a ham in front of the camera... as Cooper says, "It's how the man do."


Very pregnant Angie looking beautiful.


There are going to be quite few Utah posts coming up. Hope you don't mind. Cause if you do I might have to send my niece after you. All I'm saying is that she has street cred with urban demo. Can't you tell?

DRAPER PARADE

The first full day we were in Utah we woke up early and headed over to the Draper Parade where Brad's Brother lives. It was actually a decent parade and they tossed buckets of salt water taffy to the kids like it was going out of style. The best part was watching the various beauty queens from the surrounding counties/cities go by on their floats. They were within ear shot as they went by and our nephews kept throwing out one liners, to their credit the beauty queens were all surprising quick witted. It made for a very entertaining morning. My favorite exchange was when Jonah said, "Hmmm. She's maybe a 7 or an 8." Then the Beauty Queen held up ten fingers and mouthed "ten". It was fantastic.