Wallace 2023....I might be done

 Oh Wallace. 

You started out innocently enough, then you morphed into a whole thing.

We've been going to Wallace since 2016. This was our 8th year. 

We've seen in grow and become almost unmanageable...kids running wild, teenagers flirting and "fighting", splinter groups going for hikes and pick-up football games, moms napping in hammocks. 

Now the teenagers are adults and off gaining educations or getting married. The littles are moving into the teenage space and claiming their own firepits each night so they can have conversations outside of parental earshot.  Little do they know we are happy to give them their space.

It makes me wonder how many more years we will go out to Wallace.

This year it was just me and AJ and Everly. Mark promised to come up for a night and wanted to use his barrel smoker to make some burnt ends. Whatever works! 

Other families have shrunk down...the Flynns had no kids there at all but made up for it with a new puppy, the Peterson's were just Amy and Syd, Jensons just Heather and Katie. We're still missing the Guenthers. 

It was...quiet.

The food was still on point. 

Whenever I looked around and the girls were missing, I could find them in the truck doing their makeup!

We didn't realize at the time the bees...the bees weren't actually bees. They were hornets pretending to be bees and soon they would have their revenge!

The girls caught this floppy little snake that was definitely just "sleeping".

They spent many hours down at the Clay Wall, carving steps into it and gathering little dry bricks to

 work with back at camp. That sent me on several solitary walks down the creekbed to make sure they were still not kidnapped.

Hooray! Mark arrived and promptly engaged in manly bbq pursuits. We were all happy to hover nearby to enjoy the spoils.

I'm a total sucker for a late-night camping book. Everly is super committed to her reading fluency...SUPER committed. 

While the adults chatted away at a separate fire, the young toiled and ground down the clay... sculpters gotta sculpt. 

That was the last photo I took...I didn't know that the next day would bring an attack of the "bees". They weren't just after our open soda cans of syrup drips, they wanted us. I got stung on the arm and AJ got one on the finger and the leg. We packed as early and as quickly as we could to avoid the warm part of the day, when the little buttheads seemed to really emerge en masse. 

In the end, we pretty much frantically toseed everything haphazardly in the back of the truck and tried to drive out of beeshot. We pulled over to strap everything down and the bees were still looking for us. 

Fair to say, not really our favorite year at Wallace. It might actually be our last year at Wallace!

Time will tell. 

Wallace Highlights

You know I love going to Wallace. I love the cool weather and I love hanging out with my kids and cooking and building all the fire. 

This year was just like all the years. 

With a few notable exceptions. Let's hit the highlights!

We have a tent heater and it is FABulous. It does require that I get up about every 3 hours to fire it up and then lay there in fear that I might fall asleep and kill us all in a fiery blaze, but it's so worth it. 

Camping with daughters. It's a glamorous undertaking. 

The Guenther's surprised us by driving up from Texas! 

The three amigos are reunited! Everywhere I turned, they were huddles somewhere catching each other up on their relationships. 

The kids hours and hours at the clay wall. Either chipping away at it to make a place to sit or hauling back big chunks to put in my one good cooking pot and turn into a huge mess on the concrete slab under our picnic table. I love it. 

I took the time to precariously load myself into a hammock with a pillow and blanket and had a wonderful snooze. 

Feeling cute in my hobby lobby beanie. 

And putting my new camping cast iron to the test. 

Verdict: LOVE. 

Until we meet again, Wallace. MWAH!

Kinda Wallacing

 It was kind of strange. But Wallace felt different this year. 

Not even my new camp stove could give me that old Wallace feeling. 

We made our tinfoil dinners... hung our camping twinkle lights...

Found refuge in friends with similar interests

Rekindled a bi-annual fascination with the crank-powered radio

Discovered grilled pizza!

Tootsie had a fine sun soaked snooze

Megan found comfort in not being the only one to turn a year older without wi-fi.

You know....all the things. With friends and ward members.

But our Guenthers are gone and we miss them. Ethan is gone.  Nobody forced invited us to go down and play football by the pond. And nobody was here to chop all the firewood. 

It doesn't feel the same. 

So we disappeared for an afternoon. We drove to Adam-ondi-Ahman just because we were closer to it than we usually are. It was a nice little trail. 

The view was peaceful and it was interesting to imagine what the early saints must have felt about this place. 

It was nice to step away from the group and spend some time with each other. 

I've always wanted to drive out to Jamesport, an Amish community, and look at the shops. We were closere than we usually are, so we figured, why not?

We found a cute shop to look around in...Mark was drawn to this excellent brass spoon. 

Cute country items everywhere!

On our way back to camp we spotted an Amish bakery! oh mama. 

How do I live every day without Blueberry Pie Filling in mason jars sitting on my blueberry cloth? I can't think of the answer.

Soon enough we were happily munching our tins of cinnamon rolls and apple bread and we snuck back into camp, barely missed. 

We packed up and said goodbye to this cute snail. 

Until next year, Wallace.

The Wallace Experience

A few little tidbits from our extended camping weekend:

Fire is always our main entertainment. We want to build it immediately and keep it burning all day long. This year my fire pit was commandeered by the little girls. I frequently found them building miniature personal fires on the edges of the fire ring. I'm 19 years into this parenting gig...so I told them they were doing awesome and wandered off in search of adult conversation. 

We went on a hike in search of our old favorite teeter totter bridge. we found an old remnant. Those were the good old days!

Megan was NOT into having her photo taken this year.

Everly was good with it!

We had a couple medical emergencies...but Kate was right on hand to administer fist aid. It takes a village, people! Lol....Village People.

Anna discovered that the pantry shelf on our picnic table makes a pretty fantastic top bunk.

The girls spent lots of time at the Williams' camp painting rocks. I could barely get them to come back to eat for a few minutes and they would run straight back!

We added a new favorite meal to our camping menu....drip beef sandwiches. 

Nothing like a communal pot of au jus to really feel like you're roughin it!

This will go down as "The Year of the Bees". Every day, when the sun came up, the bees emerged and made themselves a nuisance while we ate our lunches. I'm pretty sure no one got stung...but you can't deny that little twinge of fear that you feel when one of them buzzes your ear or lands on your clothes. 

And maybe my favorite part of the weekend....watching the guys play a good old fashioned game of touch football. 

This place and these people just make me happy!

I am amazed that another year of Wallace has come and gone. I find myself cherishing the memories that we make because I can see that they are changing fast. We missed having Kylie and Miranda this year...and next year we will probably be missing our big boys. 

Maybe we'll just stay her forever!