Longest. Weekend. Ever.

So looking back on this post, it's a little whiney - so if you opt just to view the pictures instead of actually reading the entire post, please - feel free to do so.

This weekend was… and adventure, to say the least. Here’s how it went down:

Lance and Joey have been scheming for a while to go camping. It was pretty warm earlier in the week so going camping sounded lovely – even Joey’s wife Johanna and I (not the biggest camper fans) were happy to go. As the week went on it got colder and colder, and by the time Friday came it was in the low 40’s. I was a little worried because I despise being cold (especially self-inflicted cold) and I knew at night it would only get colder and colder.

We decided to go anyway.

Earlier in the week Lance had run into Mitch (one of his favorite mission companions) and he and his wife, Kensie, opted in for our little camping trip – which was such a great idea since it’s been a long time since we’d spent time together.

So like I said, Friday afternoon came, and I raced home from work to pack and get all our camping stuff ready. Mitch and Kensie showed up, I went to the grocery store to get French toast supplies for the AM, and Lance tied up a few loose ends before we left (like getting an amazing 2 room tent, 2 person sleeping bag, and 4 toasty sleeping bags for us and the Gibsons, and a little camping stove – all from his parents who donated to our camping trip).

Our scheduled time to leave was 12:30, but of course, we were on Coslett Standard Time (or Mormon Standard Time…those are usually about the same. Haha) and left around 2:00.
(Zoe, ready to go)
Joey and Johanna didn’t make it to our house in time but were going to drive out to the campsite later.

We went and found some abandoned pallets to serve as fire wood and stopped at Arctic Circle to grab a bite to eat, and it was pretty sick. It was my first and last time to go.

We drove up the alpine loop only to face a “ROAD CLOSED” sign. Glad we drove an hour for nothing? So Mitch had an idea of somewhere we could go – the vast, forbidden land of the west – aka the west side of Utah Lake.

an hour and a half later, we make it to our self-proclaimed campsite.

It was mostly tiny trees and dusty ground, but it was open, hilly, and most importantly – no rules! We pitched our tent and set up camp. Mitch took his dirt bike out of the back of the truck and Lance took his aquired-from-my-dad 4 wheeler and they took off. While they were riding around, Kensie and I realized I had left our milk and a pan to make French toast with at home. BAH! So we decided we’d try and make eggs out of this cute little teapot thing Kensie brought. Great. Haha.

Not 10 minutes pass when Lance comes racing back on the quad with a matching HISSSSSS sound… awesome. Apparently since the quad has been sitting still for 5+ years, the tires were old and couldn’t take the relatively rough terrain of our campsite and a hole was punctured in one of them. So we loaded it backed up, and that was it for quading for the day.

Good news though – the weather was PERFECT…almost HOT! I took off my sweatshirt and hung out in just a t-shirt. It was around 65-70 degrees. Perfect. I was happy.

Joey and Johanna made the hour drive from Provo all the way to the little highway that led to our campsite… we had Mitch staked out at the bottom of the hill so he could show them where we were. Somehow they couldn’t find Mitchy and finally had to turn around and go all the way back home! (sorry guys!)

So Mitch came back and we began to gather fire wood. Since there were mostly only little tiny baby trees, we kind of had a hard time finding firewood… Eventually we gathered enough to last us through the night. We started burning it and guess what? It was a special kind of wood that when it burns, it smells like dog urine. Hahahah. Nevertheless, we busted out the hotdogs and started cookin! Mitch and Kens went all out with these bad boys- they were seriously SO good. And I don’t even like meat that much. We sat around the fire on the crates and coolers (bc yes, I had forgotten to pack our lawn chairs, of course) and chit chatted, telling stories and just enjoying our time together and the outdoors.

Zoe even made a friend on this little trip.

I wish I would have taken a picture of him. He was a golden lab/some other dog (I say boxer or pit but no one else agreed with me) and atleast 3 years old. He LOOOOVED Zoe. There was a huge RV that was a little down the ways from us, and we were pretty sure he was from their campsite. Every 20 minutes or so he’d come over to our site and mess with Zoe. He was twice her size, but she loved playing with him. He’d come running straight at her as fast as he could, ram into her, send her into multiple somersaults, then run away and do it again. Sometimes they’d both disappear for a few minutes, but would both come running back pushing each other over and wrestling so hard that all you could see was a huge dust cloud and a paw here and there. Lance and I were totally okay with it because we knew it would make Zoe sleep through the night and get a little of her excess energy out. That little girl is like the Energizer Bunny. Eventually we had to go to sleep, so we had to take her friend back to his camp – and when we got there we discovered there were about 5 more dogs (no wonder no one came looking for him! I’m sure no one even noticed he was gone!) and two of them were little Aussies, just like Zoe. It all made sense now, this Lab totally knew how to handle a smart, herding Aussie – he was used to them!
Zoe tuckered out from the trip

Anyway- so we called it a night, woke up early the next morning, packed up and went home. It was a little chilly that night, but thanks to Rob and Clydie we were nice and toasty.

At noon I had a hair appointment with Hannah to do her hair for her bridal pictures. I love doing hair so much – it’s seriously like therapy for me. It turned out pretty well, yes?

Later that day, Lance went to the gym and my sister came home from shooting Hannah’s bridals and invited me to go to dinner at this little Mexican place called Diego’s down by Center Street in Provo. I got a veggie-type meal and it was DELISH. I came home, prepared Clydie’s dark chocolate covered strawberries and called it a night.

At least I THOUGHT I was calling it a night.

I woke up at midnight to greet my porcelain toilet (which luckily I had JUST cleaned)… I began throwing up atleast twice an hour all night. I spent most of the night lying on this

A makeshift bed of the multiple regal robes hanging in the bathroom.

because it was too painful to even get up and get back in bed. Cute little Zoe sat right out side the bathroom door with her little ears perked up, making sure I wasn’t going to die (which I’m pretty sure I almost did).

I kept throwing up throughout the day, but I had a little sunshine at around a little before 9:00 – I got a phone call from little missionary CJ! I wasn’t expecting it at all… My phone rang, I reached over, answered, and heard “Ashley? Hey.” I knew my favorite brother’s voice right away and immediately didn’t feel sick any more. I was so excited! He called to tell me he had given dad the wrong phone number, and dad wasn’t near his phone for CJ to tell him otherwise, so he called me! I got off the phone with him to let my parents know, and eventually me, heather, nick, lance, celeste, mom, dad and aud all got to have a Skype telephone conference with CJ in Brazil. It was so awesome to hear from him and to know how he’s doing, hear some funny stories, learn about his companion and district, and just to hear his voice in general. – even though I was intermittently throwing up and writhing on the floor in pain - He really is doing so great. Struggling a little with the language but doing great out in the streets. I’m so proud of my little brother. He’s such an awesome person and def. one to look up to.

Little Lance was so sweet throughout my little sick episode. We decided I had gotten food poisoning from the lovely Diegos. It’s my fault. One of my cardinal rules in life is “NEVER ever ever go out to eat in a dive restaurant”. This rule was conceived due to my dad’s philosophy and his success telling me horror stories about restaurants in order to gross me out paired with the show Kitchen Nightmares… But for once, once in forever, I broke my rules to eat dinner with my sister and her hubs.

That’s what I get for breaking rules, right? Listen, rules are NOT meant to be broken.

Anyway, so Lance and I have a calling teaching 14-15 year old darlings, and Lance also teaches Priesthood every other Sunday. Guess what? today Lance got to teach BOTH classes… Needless to say the little 14 year olds took over and Lance felt a little like he was in that movie Hook where all the lost boys are running around, throwing paint and proclaiming anarchy.

However, lance and two of the lost boys did something so sweet for me. He sent two of them down with a huge bouquet of beautiful roses as a “get well” kind of thing. So sweet. The nice-Lance continued throughout the rest of the day. I had previously told Clydie I’d make mother’s day dinner for her, and Lance, being the good son he is, held true to the promise and made fish, chicken, mashed potatoes, and baked asparagus all on his own! (of course with a little guidance from yours truly, lying on the couch trying not to hack while I gave him directions while ignoring any smell drifting over from the kitchen). Dinner was a success (or so I was told by the Wakefields), and I finally drifted off to sleep and slept like a baby all night.

I feel better today… however I feel slightly crosseyed and a little like I just got off a 7 day boat trip – sea legs, I guess you'd call it – and like someone drugged me with some kind of muscle relaxant. Probably not a good thing since im working at the Attorney’s office right now… bahaha.

ANYWAY. That’s the end of the forever long post. And the forever long weekend… I’m ready to crawl back into bed.