Summer seems to be the time for vacations...for most people, at least. My family was no exception...except I'm not sure I can think of a single vacation we took that didn't involve camping at least once. Even when we went to Disneyland, we went camping on the way back. I know that because I remember my sister and I were little enough that it was still okay for us to have dolls. And I remember we washed our doll clothes in the stream at the Bryce Canyon camp grounds. Yep. I wouldn't necessarily say we all love camping. I would say my mom loves it. The rest of us came to love it, or parts of it, over a long period of...years. :) But I actually love to camp...just...this time, there was a lot of DUSTY dirt. I don't care about getting dirty. I don't! But this time...for some reason this time, it started to get to me after only a day. What a pansy I've become! But it was fun.
We went camping up at Beaver Mountain campgrounds for a family reunion, and the best part was when my Grandpa brought out his "activity" for all of us to do. He split us up into families, and then gave us each a pile of stuff from when he cleaned out his garage recently. He then gave us very specific instructions on our project: to invent something from the pile of "junk" and to use as much duct tape as possible. He gave us three rolls of duct tape. Yes. Three. Well, we got right to it, and decided to make a family myth become a reality. See..my dad always told us when we were little if we were ever misbehaving that he would be forced to bring the "spanking machine" out of the attic and boy, oh, boy...then we'd be sorry!!! Lol. I think it probably worked when we were really little, but after a few years, we all knew he'd been lying. All that time! We were upset, but not really shocked. After all, he always told us HE was Santa Claus, so that's how Santa knew if we'd been naughty or nice. Argh. :) Anyhow, we decided to make a real spanking machine from this pile of cast-aways. :) My little brother, Adam, decided he was going to be the "test subject" to test the effectiveness of our new invention. He was hilarious! Here's a picture of what he did to himself:
I happen to think he's one of the funniest kids to ever walk the face of the earth. Lol. If you've read Calvin and Hobbes, you've met my little brother, Adam. He's so darn funny! After a few days of camping, we piled everything in the big white van again and set out for Rock Springs, Wyoming. Why, you ask? Don't worry. My brother, Ben, just moved there for school. There's not much in Rock Springs to attract visitors, but I guess Ben is a good reason. :) It was fun to see him, and he seemed really excited to show us around...I'm so glad he loves where he is! His cute girlfriend, Jessica (Jess) is the only one living in her apartment right now, so she put us all up for the night. What a gem she is. :) Ben and Jess took us on a tour of campus the next day, and much to the younger children's delight, there happens to be a lot of dinosaur stuff on campus...that and an overwhelming amount of other forms of dead animals. Lol. But it was so fun to go around with everyone and the little kids. They had a blast, and just watching them was ten times more fun than anything else I could have been doing that day. :)
