Call Family Vacation 2009

For a whole entire year, Dad has been trying to get everyone excited to go on a 14 mile backpacking trip. Let's just say that some were a little more excited than others. Stephen and I ended up having to cut the trip short because of some other family emergency that came up, but all that we did hike was really fun.

Stephen is our official artist. Almost every time that we go to my parents house, he draws a picture on the chalkboard. I couldn't help taking a picture of the most recent blackboard drawing. (Sorry for those of you who are not in on the inside joke.)

On Wednesday night we camped at the base of the mountain in the Palisades. That night we roasted cheese dogs. It really doesn't sound that appetizing...and they looked really gross when the cheese was dripping all over the fire as it sprouted out of the hot dogs...but they were pretty good! Of course, after the hot dogs we had to have s'mores.

The next morning we were all "up and at 'em" and 7am. Krystal was not very happy about that one. We started up the mountain to the lower palisade lake at 9am. Because Stephen and I were only going to the first lake and then hiking out, we carried day packs. That sure made the hike a lot easier. I always let everyone else around me know just how "heavy" my pack was in comparison to theirs. Check it out! My pack was bajillions of times lighter than my pack we had going to goat lake.

Here we are getting all excited to go! Look at Emmett (he's the dog). Mom and Dad decided that he was going to pull his weight as well, so he got his own pack with his food in it. He wasn't too happy to have it on in the beginning and was a little squirmy, but he got used to it.

Here's his close up. I'm really sad that I didn't get a picture of what was actually on the bag. It was Krystal's old backpack when she was little. It had a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it! We all joked that we should have bought a special Hello Kitty bag for him. He looks so sad!

These are the pictures that we took on the way up.

Here is an official looking family picture. The camera is on a timer, on a rock, right next to the stream. I can totally see Emmett jumping down and pushing that thing into the stream...but we still have a camera. We're good!

Here's Stephen making it look like he was climbing a mountain. He tried. The trail was actually relatively flat. It made the hiking a lot easier.

This is Krystal, Shane, and Karli on top of a big rock ahead of us. We were waiting for Dad and Kelsey to fall to their deaths while rock climbing a shear cliff. Dad sometimes thinks that he is still eighteen. Mom was yelling at them the whole time...

Here is Krystal and Shane doing yoga. Aren't you supposed to be tied in a pretzel when you do yoga? I see no pretzels.

At this point, Stephen and I left the group to trudge back down the hill. We hiked up five miles in five hours, and then Stephen and I hiked back down in two hours. I was so proud of us!

Thanks for the fun time y'all! I hear, however, that we missed Kory building a raft...and Krystal and Shane catching amazing trout...that would've been fun!...

P.S. Sorry Buster (Charisse's dog)...I didn't get any pictures of her climbing the mountain. She was there...I promise.