The Olsen Corner: Olsen Family Campout

Every Year we get to go camping with the Olsen Family. These camp outs actually started with tents, back in 1995 each family got to enjoy sleeping in their own tent, we actually had to deal with June rainstorms and bugs, and sleeping on the ground. Each year our camp outs have become more luxurious. Thankfully last year Bret's parents actually put 3 RV/Camping trailer hookups in their backyard, so for the last 2 years we have been camping in style.

Here is Samantha sweeping the rug outside of our camping trailer. She was dealing with her asthma issues the first 2 days of our family reunion, but she kept a smile on her face and was very helpful around camp.

Every year Grandpa Olsen takes the kids on a special hike. Here he is telling the kids about these special butterfly fossils he found in some shale up Oak City Canyon when he was 10 years old, we were about to embark on the very same hike. Grandpa told them what to look for and that when we break open the shale we should be able to find the fossils inside. The kids were very excited, and were sure we would find hundreds of fossils.

Samantha stayed behind with Grandma Olsen and helped her make cookies, since she wasn't feeling good. Kyle was more than excited to find some butterfly fossils (can't you tell?), especially since this will be his last Olsen Family camp out for a couple years. Yay Columbia South Carolina Mission.

Sadie was sore from volleyball conditioning the day before, but she put on a brave face and hiked all over the mountain in search of fossils.

So did all the other cousins. These kids were troopers. Grandpa Olsen doesn't believe in trails, so we were seriously hiking up a mountain. It was great.

The best part of this hike is we actually found some fossils! Here is Grandpa showing the kids.

Grandma and Grandpa had worked hard for several weeks getting the yard ready for all of us. They put up this awesome swing set, and the kids spent many happy hours playing on it together. Grandma Olsen had every minute planned. We went on our hike, and the next day we went to the sand dunes. This place is a favorite. I don't have any pictures of us jumping or rolling down the hills, because I always like to get in on the action, but we really worked hard running up and down this sand. It's always fun, until you get a pound of sand down your pants...

Here is a picture of all the kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

By the time this picture was taken, the kids were so ready to leave. Kyle had sand all over his face, in his ear, everywhere. Thankfully grandma was thinking ahead and after the sand dunes we went in to Delta and went swimming. We had a great time splashing each other, jumping off the diving boards, and going down the water slide.

We also set up the projector and had a movie outside. We had popcorn, and candy, it was a lot of fun. The next day we played volleyball and horseshoes (when you're in Oak City, you play horseshoes), apparently I'm better at horseshoes than I thought, Bret and I almost took the entire horseshoe competition...if I had remembered to put on sunscreen I think we would have won the last game, of course once we realized we would be playing an 8 and 9 year old in the final game, we decided to hand the title of champion over to them. It's always fun to get together with family and just relax.