Aspen Grove

July was nice and HOT around these parts. Like my skin was melting, hot. That's one big reason we were so excited about the location of the Mcknight family reunion- Aspen Grove Family Camp! Did you feel the excitement there?? 

 Its a BYU-Alumni Association camp nestled in the mountains behind Mt. Timpenogos in Utah. Its surrounded by aspen and pine trees, mountains and waterfalls. Gorgeous.

My family would go there every summer when I was a kid. It was like going away to a mountainy wonderland. You stay in cabins, they have day camp programs for the kids and family activities in the evening. Swimming, ropes courses, arts and crafts....oh my. There are guest lecturers that visit. Ours that week was John Bytheway. Its a dream. I loved that place so much I even worked there for a summer when I was 18. Remember, I grew up around LA so this was big time adventure for a city kid.

The original Mcknights. Its hard to get all 23 in one pic now.

This year, all 23 Mcknights and 2 Powells came together and stayed in one of the large family lodges. Each family had their own room and there was enough common area for us to gather and play cards in and chat in the evening. So. Much. Fun.

The family lodge

Some of the ropes course pictures. The bottom one is me just before I reached the point where I got stuck.
The other is a of some Mcknights that aren't chicken and made it to the top :)

Aspen Follies. Our team cheer was 'silent, but deadly.' 

 I won the women's archery award. Watch out Robin Hood.

Look at these cuties! One of Todd's blue steal baby twins on the left and his awesome wife with their son Gunner on the right.  Loved getting time with the fam!

Seth and I were able to get in a few hikes. The first one was in the early morning before the sun rose. We hiked up just about a half mile or so to a waterfall and watched the sun rise over Mt. Timpenogos. It was gorgeous. The next hike was to Stewart Falls. That was a few miles and pretty easy. It was beautiful scenery on the way there, but the water fall itself is eh. It was fun to get out in the trees and see some nature that we don't get to see too much of here in the valley of the sun. The 3rd hike was just a stroll through aspen trees for a mile or so. Aspen trees are my favorite. Favorite. Hearing those leaves flitter in the wind is so soothing to me.

A view from the 3rd hike at sunset. 

Before the trip, I had to work right up until the day before camp started so I flew up. Seth, my wonderful hubs, rode in the car for 2 days with my parents, sister, sister in law and SIX kids driving from Mesa up there. Yes, we are still married ha ha :) Don't you just love him?

We decided to have a little adventure on the way home since we had some extra days. I brought camping equipment in my luggage on the plane so we'd have it for this trip on the way back. (Thank you Southwest Airlines, for allowing 2 free checked bags!) When we got out of camp and picked up the car, we drove up to SLC to meet my parents, Todd and Amber's family and Joey's family to tour around the new shopping center and LDS Conference Center. Some family members had never toured the Conference Center before so that was fun. 

From SLC, we headed south and on to Manti for the first night. We camped at the bottom of temple hill. The LDS Manti temple is beautiful at night. We did a session in the morning and drove on through Bryce and Zion NP. Bryce is beautiful viewing from a distance on a grand scale, but Zion is really pretty right up close. You can hike right through the beauty. We camped a 2nd night just outside the east entrance to Zion. 

I LOVE camping. I like the fresh, chilly night air. I sleep like a rock outside. I don't know what it is about fresh air, but I have had some of my best sleeps out under the stars. In fact, one time when I was working up in Alaska for one of those summers, I was so tired from working so much and living in a 2 bedroom house with 10 other people that I went camping one night just to sleep. I drove to a trail I knew of a little ways outside Anchorage, walked maybe a few hundred yards in from the trail head and pitched my little 1 man tent. I crawled in and went right to sleep for 12 hours. When I woke up I packed up and left the trail. Ha! Who goes through the work of camping just to sleep. This chick.

Back to the story. After we camped the 2nd night and took the park bus in Zion up into the canyon, we kept our road trip going and headed down to Las Vegas. Seth has a cousin that lives there so we stopped with them for a night. Its so fun to see cousins/friends that we rarely get to see. We love our out of town friends! 

It was a fantastic trip with fabulous company!

PS- It was also a strange feeling to have an entire week off without going on a cruise! That rarely happens to me anymore. Seems like when I have a stretch of time like that, I'm using it for a cruise. It was great!