Simpson Springs 2012

For our long Memorial Day weekend, we went camping out at Simpson Springs with Papa and Melanie's family (minus Bayli, who had graduation parties to attend!)  We knew the weather might not cooperate so I brought a few "rainy day activities."  One really fun activity was making balloon animals.  I had never made one before, but thanks to the magic of Google we quickly learned how to make a simple dog.  The kids experimented with different shapes after that and had a great time.

Tess figured out how to make a giraffe.



Miles with his sword.  (Of course he made a sword!)



Bryan's crown.

The weather did let up enough to do some shooting.  Here's Miles and Bryan with the .22. 

Everyone had a good time shooting....until we noticed that my sister's little yorkie dog, Lily, was missing. We all thought she was in the trailer at the time, but she wasn't and I guess she ran away from the loud shooting. Everyone split up (3 four-wheelers and 2 motorcycles) and went all around the mountain, asking every campsite that we could see if they had seen her.  We looked all afternoon and evening on Saturday, and posted signs all around, but still couldn't find her.  This morning was pretty traumatic for my sister and her family, wondering if they'd ever find their dog (they've had her for about 7 years, so she was very much a part of the family.)  Around lunchtime a truck pulled up to our spot and they had Lily!  They had come out of their trailer and Lily ran right up to them.  We don't know where she was Saturday night; we can only assume that she slept outside in the sagebrush somewhere, in the cold rain, poor thing!  Thankfully she was OK and only had a scratch on her belly from running around in the bushes.  We were very grateful that she was back!

Tess with Papa.

We were all tired and dirty when we got home.  Here's a good "future-blackmail-shot" of Tess on the drive home.