willow lake was lovely and then we almost died...

What does one do when one needs to get away from the the stresses and pressures of work and school?

One packs up his wife and child and takes them away with him to Willow Lake, of course.

At least that is what my husband does, so when he called me on a Thursday from work and told me to come home so we could get outta dodge right then I wasn't taken by surprise. He would go camping and fishing every weekend if he could. Luckily for him, I quite enjoy those activities myself. But the baby? He had never slept in a tent before. So even though I was mildly concerned that we would have a few miserable nights, the thought of a little get-away with my two favorite people sounded like too much fun to pass up. We packed the truck in record time (which is remarkable considering the fact that the amount of stuff we brought with us caused my brother to ask, "Are you moving to Willow Lake?" Who knew a baby required so many things?), and we were on the road a little less than 3 hours after we had spontaneously decided to go. We had the entire campground to ourselves and picked out a site right on the shores of the lake. I loved that we were the only people up there. It was pretty dreamy. Here is photographic evidence:

The babe did SO great sleeping in the tent. I had the wisdom to bring the pack-n-play and, holy cow, it was so nice to know that he was enclosed in his own little space to sleep and off the cold ground. Here he is right after he woke up.

J wanted to get out bright and early to catch the fish when they are super active. Baby G and I decided to join him fresh from our cozy beds in the tent. Baby G's morning hair is pretty nice, but he definitely has had better.You cannot tell me that doesn't look like one of the most beautiful, peaceful places on the planet. It really was so serene.

See?
The first fish of the day, and it was a beautiful tiger trout. Baby G thought it was cute. J and I are sort of neglectful parents-- we would sit the baby down on this blanket with a grahm cracker and a few things to play with and go fish until either 1)the baby got bored on the blanket and had moved onto the grass/weeds and begun to eat them, or 2)he cried for us to bring him down by the water. He is a pretty content little guy though, and so he spent about an hour on the blanket that morning.
Tailgates make for fantastic tables. We were so grateful we had the truck for things like that. Baby G loved just hanging out in the back of it.
Another reason I have a testimony of bringing pack-n-plays on camping trips? He could just hang out somewhere without needing to be held or getting filthy on the ground.An amazingly beautiful and large tiger. Mountain lakes typically aren't known for big fish, so you can imagine J's excitement when he landed this guy. We are normally all about catch and release, but we decided to save this guy and have him for dinner. I was shocked at how yummy the fish was. It looked and tasted so much like salmon. See what I mean about the pack-n-play? Hours of entertainment.

I love my cuddly little boy. He gives the best hugs.

It got chilly enough to need the leg warmers a couple of times, but the weather was beautiful most of the time.

Proof that I caught some fish as well.

So we had such a great time at Willow Lake, but I came up with the idea of heading to Manti for our 3rd day so we could catch the pageant and eat some funnel cakes. We consulted our trusty atlas and saw that the moutain road we were on actually could get us there pretty quickly if we just kept going up over the mountains instead of heading down the way we would have gone to go home. This is the part where we almost died (not really. sort of).

We're driving along the road, gaining some altitude, and we start seeing patches of snow. No big deal, right? Yeah, don't think that. That's what I thought and that is what got us completely high centered in a fairly small snow drift in the middle of the road. I honestly was so surprised when we got stuck because the snow drift really didn't look very menacing, and we had put the truck in 4 wheel drive, which normally enables it to go through whatever we throw its way. Not this time. It had been such a warm day, and we had gotten far enough into the snow, that we just sunk down in and got so stuck. The tires couldn't get any traction. To make a long story (and an even longer night) short, we tried a couple of tricks to get it out, but none worked. We quickly realized that we would just have to dig the truck out. Which, as it turns out, is harder than it seems when you don't have a shovel, it is quickly getting dark and cold, and you can't run the heater in the car because you need to conserve gas. I saw the water thermos in the truck and realized we could dig with that. It honestly saved us. We wouldn't have ever been able to move all that snow without it. Here is J trying to get some of the snow out.This is us inside the truck being hopeful that we would be able to get it out that night. And this next picture is us the next morning after a really long, uncomfortable night of sleeping stranded in the truck. J had been digging for over 2 hours the night before when he started to realize how cold he was. He was completely soaking wet (laying down on your back in snow will do that to you), and had been expending enormous amounts of energy. I was in the truck trying to keep the baby happy and get him to sleep. At about 11:30 PM J opened the door and sat down. I asked him if he was done digging and he didn't respond. He was just looking straight forward. I realized that he needed to get warmed up fast. I told him to get out of his wet clothes. He took off his shirt and then just sat there. He honestly couldn't process thoughts very clearly and I had to go through each article of clothing he was wearing to get him to remove them. I started the car and turned on the heater and made him get under some blankets. His body just started shaking. Once he got a little warmed up he immediately realized he needed calories in his body. He downed a huge gatorade and about 4 handfuls of brownies. I was laughing at him because he seriously looked like he had been starved for weeks. You know it was sort of serious because I didn't get any pictures of him. I asked him why he couldn't respond to me earlier and he said that he heard me, but he couldn't get up enough energy to form words. His body was so exhausted. But other than some tingly body parts (the places on his back and shoulders that had been laying on the snow tingled for a few days), he was fine. It was a little scary, but I think he came in the truck in just enough time to spare himself anything serious. Sleeping in the truck was NOT fun, but it was a good adventure, right?The next morning we had a little more digging to do in order to get out. Baby G supervised from the back (if you look closely you can see J digging on the left side of the truck).After about an hour we thought we had cleared enough snow out to move the truck. One try was all it took and the truck practically zoomed out on its own. This is how tired we were after the long night.The babe slept most of the way home.

Now, anyone wanna come camping with us? We promise it will be exciting.