Cousin Camp 2010!

It's been a very fun three or four weeks at our house.  Mindy's family returned to Utah at the end of a trip to Jackson Hole and left Sadie with me for four days until her cousins could join us for COUSIN CAMP! This year it was only for the big girls, Hannah (11), Sadie (10), Ellie (almost 10), Sophie (9), and Kate (almost 8).

BBQ in the backyard...I love it when I make something they ALL like!

We stenciled bags to hold all their accumulating "stuff."

The girls "dorm" was upstairs. Each night ended with story time! (Left to right - Sophie, Ellie, Sadie, Kate, Hannah.....and Gramma...the one with the glasses!)

One of our Cousin Camp days was Sunday which I thought might be challenging, but it was wonderful! We began the day by attending "Music and the Spoken Word" in the Conference Center. The choir is celebrating 100 years this year, so it was extra special...and 30 minutes was just right!

We took our time enjoying beautiful Temple Square!

Then we visited the Joseph Smith Memorial Building which used to be the Hotel Utah. The GGG Grandpa of these girls, George Romney, built it, so we took our time enjoying the beautiful craftsmanship and I shared a few stories about this great man.

We took a tour of the Beehive House which the girls thought was the prettiest house they had ever seen.

And then walking back to the car we had to stop for a photo shoot at the famous bride and groom/temple spot. We were all famished by now, so we had a tailgate picnic in the underground parking lot of the Conference Center. Rejuvenated, we visited Brigham Young's family cemetery, and then we headed up to Salt Lake City Cemetery.

We visited almost all the prophets' graves and the girl's had prepared little talks to share with each other about their "assigned" prophet. They loved seeing Pres. Hinckley's grave and expressed how much they love and miss him. Don't we all?

And then we visited some of our ancestors graves. I prepared pictures of the ancestors for each of the girls and shared highlights from their lives. When we left George Romney's grave, they all said, "Bye Grandpa Romney. We love you!" Perfect!
We spent the whole afternoon downtown and the kids were great! We "tailgated" snacks and water every now and then, and when we were out of energy we headed home for dinner and a "String Art" project (no picture.)

The next morning we hiked up in Albion Basin to Catherine's Pass. My little hikers were great and we made it to the pass where we had our lunch and rested up. (The flowers on this hike are so beautiful and nationally known.) A VERY FUN activity!

Words are unnecessary!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, Sadie did have a matching shirt, but she chose the white one for this day.

Grampa took the girls to the Cowabunga waterpark while I regrouped at home (breakfast dishes, cleaned hiking shoes, etc.)

And to In & Out Burger for dinner!

On our last morning we took a bike ride along the Jordan River Parkway, then we headed to Costco to develop our Cousin Camp pictures so the girls could each have their own album. (The one-hour machine destroyed my camera's memory stick but fortunately, the pictures could still be retrieved.) We grabbed lunch there while we waited and also enjoyed all the "samples" at Costco. Then we went home and packed. Grampa drove Sophie to Lehi to meet Julie and I drove the Boise four to Rupert where Mindy was waiting for us at a nationally acclaimed quilt store. (Unfortunately, it closed 15 minutes after I got there.) Cousin Camp 2010 was a lot of fun and all seemed to really have a good time. A day after Cousin Camp Ryan's family came here for a few days, but since my camera has no memory stick....I have no pictures. We went Miniature Golfing, and to the canyon for a walk around Silver Lake, to the park for dinner....we had a great time together. Now it's once again quiet around here....which for awhile isn't a bad thing!