Thirtydaycation: Chapter 3 - Insert Title Here

Well, after a couple months' delay I guess it's probably about time I wrap up this vacationography. If you recall from my post back in August, we made our way from northern Utah down to southern Utah. We sprinkled in a short hike and some swimming, and then Max and I took off to meet up with my brothers for a camping trip.

Fast forward to the beginning of week four of our thirtydaycation. Shayla's aunt and uncle returned from serving as mission presidents in Montana, so we went to their homecoming talk at church and then spent the afternoon at a luncheon in their honor. As we headed to Shayla's parents' home, dark storm clouds filled the sky. Scattered drops began to fall when we pulled into the driveway, and a few minutes later, the heavens opened up and unleashed their full potential. Rain fell so fast the entire street was flowing like a river!

We took advantage of the situation and headed to the backyard for an impromptu skim session. The flooded lawn proved to be the perfect place and soon everyone was having fun either skimming or just watching and taking it all in. After a while, the clouds moved on and the water eventually seeped into the lawn.

The next day, our vacation hit a major bump. We went to Pioneer Park, intent on taking pictures of our kids and the spectacular scenery. We did just that. However, we left the park in a rush, and having set the camera down on a rock, I forgot to pick it back up. I didn't realize my mistake until the next morning, when I was looking around the house for our camera. It soon dawned on me that I had left it at the park. I hurried back there as quickly as I could, hopeful that it was still where I had left it. Unfortunately, my hope was in vain. There was no camera. Anywhere.

I'm pretty sure I know exactly where I left it, but I searched the ENTIRE park, just in case. It was nowhere. Not on the rock where I had set it down, not on the rock next to that rock, not in a bush, not in the parking lot, not in the port-a-potty, not in a car, not in a box, not in the dark, not on a train, the camera wasn't here or there, the camera wasn't anywhere!

That, my friends, is the sole reason many of the pictures from our vacation have been pilfered from friends and family. Many of those pilfered photos appear on this blog, and to those from whom I have pilfered photos, I have to say THANK YOU! First, for letting me have your photos, and second for actually taking pictures of our family. We lost over 1700 photos along with our camera, and without the photos taken by others, many of the scenes from our vacation would have been lost to us forever.

We held on hope that our camera would be returned, but, well, we all know how that goes. In actuality, someone out there found our camera, rifled through the photos on the card, most likely deleted them without a second thought, and then either sold the camera or claimed it as their own. Either way, our 1700+ photos are toast.

Fortunately, we brought a second camera on our vacation with us, so even though we had lost what seemed like a bazillion photos, we still had the ability to take a bazillion more. So we did.

We started by going back to Pioneer Park, partially to take some more photos but mostly to look a second time for our camera. As you can see below, we were successful on only one of those ventures.

Luckily, we have some pretty awesome kids and we had a great time exploring the rocks, so even though the search for our camera yielded unsatisfactory results, we still had a great time. Max and Isla found plenty of small places to squeeze into, and I tried my best to squeeze in with them.

The next couple of days were spent at Shayla's parents' house, playing with cousins and generally having a great time. We rode four-wheelers in the back yard, played games with family, and the kids even went for a ride on grandpa's old tractor.

Shayla's dad brought her grandpa's old farm tractor down from Delta about a year or so ago. When he got it, it was an old rusted mess. He completely restored it and now it looks and sounds what I imagine it looked sounded like decades ago when it was brand new.

Shayla's mom wrapped up this section of our vacation with a special summer-edition of Grandma's pre-school. She usually does this during non-summer months for her younger grandkids when their siblings are in school. She was nice enough to pull together a special class so that Max and Isla could attend as well.

Even though we lost our camera and cried, worried, and stressed over it for a few days, we realized we were still able to take the memories home with us, even if we didn't have the pictures to go along with them. And fortunately, we had already downloaded several of them onto my dad's laptop, were able to steal some from others, and even had a backup camera to finish up our trip with. And, I guess more importantly, we had only left our camera at the park, and not one of our kids. All in all, things were still pretty good.