The Johnson Clan

We went camping in Fairview Canyon at Cleveland lake. We reserved a beautiful campsite right by the water, and invited our friends the Lyndsey’s to go with us. Joanie and McKay have a toddler son named Jameson, who is friends with Ruby and Cora. We got there Friday afternoon and set up camp. We were not anticipating all the mosquitos, luckily one of us brought bug spray. Cora, Ruby, and Jameson ran off and played in the trees, caught bugs, hunted squirrels, and got very dirty. We made hot dogs and Dutch oven peach cobbler, then sat around the campfire and played games.  We went to bed around 10, but the girls were too excited and talked and talked. We finally all fell asleep around 11. Clayton says he slept like a rock, but I couldn’t sleep. It was a little too chilly and I forgot my hat. Ruby woke up early and left the tent with Clayton, Cora and I slept in until 8. After packing up all our stuff and stuffing the car too full again, we took our kayaks down to the lake. Some of us ...

For Christmas 2 years ago Mimi bought us a membership to Thanksgiving Point, and it was one of the best gifts we’ve ever been given. Thanksgiving point has 5 different venues, including multiple museums, a botanical garden, and a farm. When our membership expired we renewed it, because we go all the time. Probably once every other week. It’s the perfect outing for any season, but especially during the cold Utah winter.  Today we took Mimi and Marshall with us to the Curiosity Museum at Thanksgiving point. The Curiosity Museum has 5 separate areas, and we only made it through 2.5 in 3 hours. The girls were in heaven, not only because they love going to the museum but also because we brought their best friend, Marshall.  They played and played and played. If I hadn’t bribed them with ice cream, they never would have wanted to leave. Everyone was worn out by the time we left, and both girls fell asleep in the car. I thought they’d wake up when I took them inside, but clearly it d...

We went on our first family camping trip of the year this weekend. Goblin valley is only 2.5 hours south of us, but it looks like an entirely different planet. We packed up the car to maximum capacity on Thursday night, Clayton worked for a few hours on Friday morning, and then we drove down in the afternoon. The drive went well, both girls fell asleep and napped almost the whole way, but once we got there we had to spend almost two hours searching for a camping site. Goblin Valley has an official camp ground, but the spot get booked quickly for the whole open season. There’s primitive camping close by that is first come first serve, so that was our plan. The problem was that it was so so so windy, and everyone was trying to camp behind a wall of rock to block some of the wind. We eventually found a spot that was protected enough that our tent wouldn’t blow away, so we pitched it and went for a hike close to our site called Wild Horse trail. The first 10 minutes of the trail is out in ...