Mt Nebo Camping

This weekend we headed out camping for a night with Tara and Ben(minus Tara, she was sick), Theresa, and Jason and Lindsay.  We went up to Mt Nebo near Payson.  I had picked this area because there are some mountain biking trails that I wanted to try.  Theresa did some research on camping areas.  We headed up around noon on Saturday and ended up camping in the Blackhawk Campground.  We ended up with a great site that had picnic tables, a fire pit, and running water.  The only problem was the storm clouds!  It started raining shortly after we got there.  It was quite the thunder storm. The kids were afraid of the thunder for awhile but then got used to it.  The rain was pretty light so that wasn't too bad.  At the last minute we had decided to throw in our sunshade and it came in handy protecting us from the rain.  

Putting up our tent

Playing in the dirt.  The kids had a lot of fun doing this.  Audrey was SO dirty, but it was okay, because we had water to clean her off with. 

Building a fire

Coloring

The dogs spent some of their time tied up here. There were 5 dogs on our trip and they definitely had to keep their space.  Simba put some work into making the area comfy and dug up the dirt for hours.  

After the rain; Ben, Jason, and I went for a bike ride.

Campfire!

Our sleeping arrangements: Audrey was in the pac n play, the rest of us slept on air mattresses.

Since we were on a group site there were lots of trails going throughout the site to all the tent areas.  The kids had a lot of fun exploring the site. 

On Sunday morning, Ben and Paul went out for a bike ride.  Afterwards, Tara made it up and we went to the Payson Lakes area to play in the water a bit. It was really nice.  The lake isn't too high so the water was a little warmer than we're used to.  It's small, so no motor boats.  I really liked the area and the kids had a great time. 

After the lake we headed to "the grotto" for a hike.  It was a half mile hike to a really cool waterfall.   On the hike, Paul and Colin startled a flock of turkeys.  There were like 15 of them.  It was so loud when they all took off. I was a ways behind them and I thought a moose was running down the trail.  I scooped up Audrey and jumped off the trail as I saw the turkeys fly away.  

There were a bunch of times that we had to cross the stream on these walkways.  The kids liked the bridges

Waterfall!

Audrey ended up falling in the water and got soaked!  She wasn't too happy.  The kids had a great time.  Saturday was the first time they have ever skipped a nap. Then they went to bed late that night at 9ish and still got up at 630 with the sun the next morning.  We didn't finish this hike until after 2(way past nap time).  I was so impressed with how good they did on little sleep during this trip.  They were great.  

Putting everything together to camp for 24 hours is a lot of work, but it was SO worth it.  We had a great time, the kids had a great time, and even the dogs had a great time.