A "camping" we go

While Casey was away at his 10 year high school reunion one weekend, my mom was in town and some friends said they were going camping so we joined in on their fun for the evening! Just like the after the dairy farm I questioned myself "Was this worth it? I don't even think this was fun." Ha. Of course it was enjoyable and it's good to have these experiences even if they don't seem enjoyable in the moment, Maxson just requires a lot of parenting and breaks his boundaries all the time , it's just so hard dealing with him in new situations sometimes. This evening in particular he was overly physical with many of the children which involved a lot of frustrated parenting/disciplining on my part. And then add babies who are crying for nursing, then bottles, then real food, then pooping, it all just compounds on each other. BUT it actually was fun now looking back. I'm glad we went. Max probably only remembers the great time he had exploring around the lake and nature area and eating an insane amount of yummy cookies, I 100% doubt he has any recollection of his 3 time outs in the car or being reprimanded for not ok behavior, funny how that happens. We had yummy hot dogs and delicious different kinds of s'mores, great conversations (about the new supreme court ruling that day on gay marriage), and silly child moments. We stayed until the sun was setting and left with a plentiful amount of bug bites. All in all it was a great evening, I'm glad we went. Someday in the very far future we shall actually stay and camp for the evening!

Max chowing down on all the food, watermelon especially was a crowd favorite.

 We brought the pack n play for the babies to play in which was brilliant on my part.

 Bryson on the left.

 What's strange about living in the midwest is that the sun doesn't set until 9:00-9:20. So we're having dinner here at what you think would be middle of the afternoon, it's really like 7 pm, strange.

 These 3 little boys are cute together. We are so lucky to be surrounded by friends with kids the same age as ours in our same year of dental school. FOUR years together, great friends right there.

 Reeses s'mores

a. Dirty and happy

Quinn be like I'm done in here yo

 Twins!

 My mom was the biggest help while there. At one point she took Max for a solid hour or so and let him explore the incredibly brown/dirty "lake" area nearby and just let him go while I sat and focused on babies. He needed that, to go do his own thing and get away from others for a little bit.

We left at dusk.

That's a wrap!

Father's and Sons campout

Again, since this was technically Casey's activity, I convinced him to write about it! So another guest post from Casey!

I was excited to take Max on this campout since he kind of understands what it is this year. Here are some pictures of the tent setup and basically Max getting into mischief. He kept running away to all the scouts that were camping at the same site, but not with our group. He kept wanting to take their balls. Haha!

I was afraid that Max was going to be starved because he has been very picky lately with eating food. He loved the Chilli-cheese Brats that we ate so I was excited about that. I also, spoiled him by letting him have some Dr. Pepper. He really liked that and marshmallows and anything with sugar.

This is our little campsite and pictures of the cute baby boy. I love this boy! I'm gladly looking forward to taking him on many more of these events.

We took Cornhole with us and played it at night by lamplight, it was actually very awesome and fun. The kids that were still awake loved it. I love roasting marshmallows they are always so tasty.

So I have to tell a story, Max was a gem, he went to bed at like 830 and was just an angel. He fell asleep on my shoulder so I just put him to bed. At about 2 A.M I here a cry and he is standing up in his pack-and-play wanting to get out. I let him snuggle up to me on the ground for 30 minutes or so. He fell back to sleep for a few minutes than woke back up. He did this several times and I tried putting him back in his bed a couple times, but he kept just crying and was wide awake, he wanted to go outside. I thought in my head I am not dealing with this. So at like 3 in the morning I leave in the van and take him home. (20 minutes away so not a big deal). He went back to bed around 3:30. Me on the other hand, I was awake and could not fall asleep so I just stayed up for the rest of the morning because I knew I had to be back out at the camp ground at 8 A.M. for breakfast. It was a long morning, but still worth it. Max will get better and will learn to stay sleeping.

going on a bear hunt, in a corn field...

so last weekend we went camping with friends and had a splendid old time. it was quite the different adventure than what our last camping trip was like. my cute friend was the master mind behind it all. we drove just beyond the city limits and after passing corn field after corn field, we arrived at our camp site. we pitched tents, everyone cooked their different dinners over the fire and let the children run wild. in my case children running wild really meant making sure maxson didn't crawl near the fire. after dinner was settled we devoured tons of smores and tons of delicious cobbler. those of us who stayed the night put the kids to bed in the tents and sat around the campfire until late in the evening laughing at favorite movies, high school memories, dating stories, and funny things kids do. it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

the weather was fantastic all evening and then at night time it took a u-turn. thunder, lightning, rain, rain and more rain. luckily we stayed mostly dry and completely warm. maxson did great snuggling with us half the night and pretty much nursed whenever he made a peep so as not to wake up the camp. probably his most favorite night ever. however he did wake up at around 5:30 and think "hey! let's get up and play!" we both laughed it off and i think he finally fell asleep around 6:15 or so.

in the morning we stood around the campfire, warmed up our egg burritos and made a little hot chocolate

yay for camping at least once this year!

if we're to go again we either need a bigger tent or we can't sleep on an air mattress in order to save room for a pack n play.
we shall see :)

and like last time, a few points not to be forgotten:

-casey still had to get up in the middle of the night to pee...in the cold rain, haha

-neither of us slept from about 3:30-6 though we were laughing together most of the time, such a funny night.

-in the beginning casey said we were just sleeping on the ground, i insisted we bring the air mattress. in the end we both got our wishes. although we had an air mattress it's next to worthless and deflates during the night so casey end up practically sleeping on the ground all night, heh heh.

camping: iPhone pictures.

more camping, from the phone

 

provo utah bucket list: go real camping

we have officially crossed of another item off our bucket list.

this last weekend we went camping up diamond fork canyon near spanish fork,

and had a grand ol' time together.

we dusted off our sleeping bag and tent,

borrowed many an items from family, neighbors, and landlord,

and went on our way!

hot dogs for dinner and breakfast,
casey brought his finest whitetrashwyomingcowboy skills with us

after cuddling all night to stay warm,
we woke up to frost all over everything, and the rushing stream as our background noise.

we built one more fire for morning (for our hot dogs, jeeze)
warmed ourselves back up and packed up "camp."

 

dear camping,

you were more fun than i expected.

i'd love to go again.

love, the cutlers.

stories not to be forgotten:

-weston telling us at the last minute that "tomorrow" was the first day of hunting season for locals. DON'T SHOOT ME!

-the trouble with fires...

-waking up in the morning to a mysterious tent across the stream. no idea where that came from.

-casey having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the freezing night.

-the air mattress not blowing up all the way.

thank goodness it was friday!

one of the best friday afternoons in a long time fo us!

it kinda stinks that we aren't done with school til 5 pm on a friday :(

usually you barely have any classes on fridays, but not for us this year.

i have class from 11-5 with one 1 hour break.

casey has class at 10 and then does research til 5.

so to celebrate being done with another week of schools we

a) went couponing at target:
the following pic was paid for with less than $3, should've been 17 :)

4 packages of oreos for the price of one!

b) we then met up with one of casey and my's most favorite people of all time!

the incredible, lovable, adorable andrea hunt.

we seriously love her to death! she is the mom of the family in cali that we became such good friends with this summer and we love them all to death! she was in slc for an anti-gravity yoga (if you EVER have a chance to do this, DO IT!) session training and came all the way down to provo to visit us!  we cannot begin to say how much we adore her, we were so excited to meet up with her! we ate at iggy's sports grill- way yummy and fun!

c) also that night we were thinking/wanting to go camping but in the end decided we just weren't prepared to go- so we improvised and camped in our apartement! loved it :) and we of course had to have oreos and milk while camping

we just loved our friday, it could not have been better!



btw- i'll try not doing too much of this "look-what-amazing-deal-i-found-now-b/c-i'm-really-into-couponing-thing." but just my last for couponing and questions for you?
1. do you live in the utah area?
2. do you want to get free and practically free things?
3. do you want to coupon?
k, here's the deal: the utah couponing queen (the savvyshopper) is doing a free workshop in provo on sept 23, totally go if you want to learn how to start doing this, i promise it'll pay off! just go to the site and sign up to say you're coming! i will see you there!
another ps on couponing- i use the hip2save website mostly, every once and awhile i'll use the savvyshoppers too but i love love love hip2save. they're both great for different areas :)