So, to make a long story short I'm going to tell you about the long nights involved when camping without your spouse with your 1 year old triplets. How to begin, oh yes,
Once upon a time.....
There was a man who fell in love with a hot mama and they had the world's most beautiful children, 7 of them to be exact. Time past and those children in turn had even more beautiful children and it was decided that there would be a reunion. It would be a coming together of family.
Yeah, ok. So we started the Andrew Jensen Family reunion this year and held it at the family property on Panguitch Lake. Almost everyone was able to make it. One of the ones that didn't was Derek, had to work, but I was going to go no matter what! I borrowed my nephew Kyler (it happened to be his birthday that day) to be in the van with me on the way up.
Side story: My sister and I stopped at Costco in St. George, UT and after shopping fed all the kids lunch, after all costco hot dogs.. no need to say more. We took turns getting food, one watching the others kids, there were 7 between the 2 of us. We had a lot of eyes on us and one kind couple came up to me while I was on watch and said and I quote," Please tell me those are not all your children"... I kindly laughed and explained who belonged to who and they were delighted with how well behaved our children all were. Of course there were also the remarks that since I had 3 at one time, and lucked out getting both genders that I'm done.... :)
We made it to camp in good time and enjoyed the rest of the day. I guess I didn't realize, how should I put this, that I was a bit stressed out until bedtime came. Ethan went to sleep and I laid him down in the tent. I went to lay Brinley down with her bottle because I thought she would just dose off like home. Nope, there was screaming involved so I hurried to get her out of the tent before Ethan woke up. On the way out my foot caught the bottom of the tent door and I went down, on top of Brinley... gave her a bloody nose, Ethan is screaming...Sister comes and gets Brinley and I sit in the tent not doing any kind of good at holding back my emotions. All I could think was "why am I here". My oldest sister was able to bring me back to earth and the night ended or rather began with two of my sisters taking two of my kids.
Kelle had Brinley and told me the next morning that Brinley had woken up once, didn't want her bottle and started crying. Her youngest Emmy was next to her and also woke up but as soon as she saw "biney" she popped her own binkey into Brinley's mouth and they both went back to sleep :)
Jackson had a really rough night. Ethan did the same thing and all night I was praying for the sun to come up. Jackson woke up first, bright and early so we got to hang out and explore.
Christopher and Conner
Ethan was the only one that would get on the 4 wheeler and after his first ride he scooted forward and grabbed the handle bars just like Grandpa!
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| Shay Bug, Avery, Emmy and Ethan |
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| Emmy and Brinley |
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| Tired Jackson, didn't move from this position for an hour after I put him down |
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| Super tired Brinley and Ethan |
Our second night wasn't much better than the first. Brinley's binky, a night time necessity was nowhere to be found. She was going with Grandma that night so I sent her with a bottle and a prayer. I was able to find a binky around 2 in the morning when I was trying to entertain my boys with a flashlight.
That's the gist of the nighttime events for us, but the daytime was awesome. It was such a blessing to be able to meet as a family and start a new tradition. I am blessed with amazing brother's and sister's, awesome parents and my own small family. Love me some family!
