Delight in the simple things: Wilson Family Mine and Other Adventures

You know, it's kind of funny, when Emma finished up school and speech for the summer I gave a huge sigh of relief thinking that lazier days were on the way. Ha! I forgot how crazy busy summer can be. I'm not sure how. Anyway, this week has been filled with adventures, fun and a heck of a lot of work. I had three shoots this week PLUS a wedding (I've cut back to only two sessions a week so I'm not sure how this happened ;)). And Dave, lets just say he will have about 150 hrs. on his next paycheck. Yikes! And then once you add in a late night at the drive-in with family and friends, an AMAZING albeit short camping trip, a 22 mile night biking event under the full moon (with plenty of hills, friends and a fierce headwind) and putting together and hosting a baby shower for my gorgeous sister-in-law (due 2 1/2 weeks before me) you will understand why we are all completely exhausted. Ex-hausted! The last 4 nights we haven't gone to bed until after 2:00 a.m but have still woken up between 5:30 and 7:00 am. No joke. Did I mention my body hurts? And I'm tired? Oh yeah.

But you know what? The aching body and exhaustion are totally worth it. A lot of memories were made. Take our camping trip for proof. We went with Dave's uncle and soon to be cousin-in-law to a family mine out in the west desert. I haven't roughed it like that camping in years. When I say roughing it I mean spending 2 1/2 hours on bumpy, rough back roads (one way), being 50 miles from the nearest port-a-potty and water source and simply throwing the sleeping bags on the tent floor kind of roughing it. Once again, totally worth it. The mine was amazing! The monkeys were a little nervous to head down into it. Heck I was REALLY nervous to head down into it. Imagine a very narrow, very dark hole in the ground with a questionably narrow looking ladder heading down 100 ft.

A hug for good luck. They get really sweet and sentimental when they think they are going to die.

Dave took Ali down first and even though she was gung-ho about hopping on the ladder and heading down first she keep repeating, "don't let me die" until they reached the bottom. Poor Emma was in tears and hysterics while waiting for her turn to head down. It wasn't until I told her I was kind of scared too that she braved up. After my confession she turned into the brave-we can do this-don't you worry leader. And then after Dave and I told her it was going to be a paleontologist adventure well, she was allll over it. Her endless chatter down the ladder was the only thing that gave away her nervousness. She's like me, likes to talk in nerve-racking situations.

Once down in the mine there was a lot of crawling, squirming, squishing, climbing of narrow 100 yr. old ladders and exploring.

This girl was in heaven!

She found so many treasures including many sparkly rocks, a decaying rattle snake body and a bone that she is positive is a baby long-neck dinosaur's neck bone. At one point she declared, "This is the best day of my whoooole life". Priceless.

And Ali?

Well her bravado wore off once she got to the bottom of the main ladder and she stayed quite nervous while we were down there. Especially after we ran into a human skeleton. It was just a little gag Dave's uncle had left down there but Ali kept telling us it was her brother that had died. She was sure of it. Nut!

While down in the mine our awesome tour guide and soon to be cousin-in-law, (no idea if that is the correct title, but you get the picture) Steve, broke out some mining tools.