FHE in the Canyon

I love where I live. We have beautiful valleys and incredible mountains. We took advantage of a beautiful summer evening to drive up into American Fork canyon and have a family home evening BBQ with Jared, Leslie, Jeff and Alison and all the cousins. Even Yuta, Leslie’s Japanese exchange student came as well. Poor Mark missed out on another fun family gathering, no thanks to China.
We snagged the perfect BBQ pit and picnic area. It was the last one on the little trail right next to the river, away from all the foot traffic of other picnic sites.

Piper loved getting dirty and exploring all over the place.

Téa followed her older cousins across the log to explore the other side of the river.

With all this blogging in the last few days I find that I’m always taking pictures of Markee. Maybe it’s because I’m her favorite auntie and we hang out a lot during family functions and we are usually talking to each other. Or maybe I like taking pictures of her pretty face.

Téa and Calista figured out how to get across the river so Piper felt she needed to, as well. She suckered Erik in to helping her, though. Such a great cousin.

My lovely sister-in-law, Leslie.

I think Téa crossed the river at least a dozen times. I now just realized while posting this picture that Marin is photo bombing. And the game continues…

We were so proud of Markee for making the trek across the log. She was pretty proud, too.

All the girl cousins.

Two minutes before I took the picture above I was just thinking that someone was going to take an accidental spill into the river with all the crossing. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard screaming and looked over to see someone had fallen in. I didn’t picture it being one of my kids, though. Poor Piper fell in when coming back across the log. She said her foot slipped and she fell in. Unfortunately, she fell knee first into the rocks so she got banged up a little. But she was a trooper and went back out so I could get the picture of all the girl cousins.
It was late July but that water was NOT warm. Poor kid was freezing. One thing Mark has taught me well is ‘come prepared’. I had all the girls bring warm clothes to change into in case it got cold when the sun went down. I also always have blankets in the back of my car so Piper was just fine once she had dry clothes on.

You can’t have a BBQ in the mountains without S’mores. Calista looks a little maniacal.

Someone brought bubbles to entertain ourselves. You are never too old for bubbles.

Years ago I creeped out Jared with my goat impersonation. Tonight I tried to teach him how to do it. He’s getting it!

Piper made fast friends with Yuta, Leslie’s Japanese exchange student. Who knows if they understood each other completely. But they both recognized a friend in each other. Here they are blowing bubbles on the river bank.

It was getting dark so we all sat around chatting as the fire died down.

But before we poured water on the coals all the boys found a coal to play with. It’s too bad it was too dark to take pictures of but it was hilarious watching Jared, Jeff, Josh and Erik throwing a hot coal to each other, trying not to drop it…or burn themselves.
All good things come to an end, unfortunately. I’m going to make sure we plan more of these canyon BBQs next summer. So much fun. And I’m going to make sure Mark will be in town.