Surviving His First Campbell Family Vacation

Ah, yes, Flaco. What a loyal horse he was, standing so still for our little family picture. We set the camera up on the stroller, saddled Dom up on Flaco and said cheese. Turns out, when there isn’t anybody behind the camera making goofy noises or doing jumping jacks, Dom tends to look elsewhere. He was showing us his good side.

Last week, we joined the Campbell troupe up in Park City for the annual vacation. This was Dom’s first fam.lee.va.ca.tion. It was a lot of people (understatement) which mostly made for a lot of fun. If I counted on my fingers accurately, there were 32 of us up there, plus two on the way. Sounds like a party, right?

Nathan and I stayed in one room of a suite at Park City Marriott Mountainside, with Maren, Dustin and Campbie Joe in the adjoining room. Our suite had a giant soaker tub where Dom took his nightly bath. See if you can find Dom:

It was a great set up. We all had condos right next to each other so we just left room doors cracked for easy access. There was the Mom/Dad/James/Jasmine condo (the quiet condo that was just out of the reach of Dom’s monitor for naps and at night), the Mick/Tracy condo right across from ours, the Jarv/Jennie condo around the corner and the Thane/Laina/Pete/Genny condo next to theirs. We ruled one end of the third-floor hallway.

Marriott provided us with a pack and play as well as a high chair, very nice. It was an adjustment, though, to sleep with Dom in the same room and turns out, he had ear infections so he wasn’t sleeping particularly great either. But, we slept in a comfortable, king size bed. Not bad.

Campbie Joe and Dom enjoyed eating breakfast together some mornings, making good use of the resort-provided high chairs:

At the beginning of the week, Nathan was doing homework for his midterms so Dom and I joined up with some of the fam for a short hike up the Canyons Resort. It was the first time using the hiking backpack. Dom was not a fan at first, but if you can tell in the middle picture below, he soon fell asleep and took a 30 minute nap while we hiked up. I was very diligent with applying sunscreen to myself and Dom throughout the vacation but on the hike, I realized what I completely forgot: bug spray. Our short hike went up along some of the mountain biking trails, then cut away from those into thicker forest/vegetation where I started to notice some bugs but it wasn’t until we stopped at a small, man-made lake that we encountered swarms of flies. I thought for sure, one of those dirty little bugs had bit me on the ankle when a red bump started forming later that day and itched like crazy. I resisted the temptation to scratch it and within a day it had blistered. What kind of a bug bite blisters? Thane and Laina told me it looked more like a poison ivy reaction. Today, it is almost gone. Thankfully, I didn’t find any bug bites or poison-ivy blisters on Dom.

Here are some pics from our hike, which started with a Gondola ride (awesome) and finished at a small, man-made lake (okay), but was a great workout for me (splendid):

 

I really appreciated the time spent with Dominic and was sad to drop him off at daycare Monday morning. That was the highlight of the vacation for me: lots and lots of Dom time. The downside was that Nathan still had class and it was midterms so much of his time was spent on campus or doing homework.

On Wednesday night, to celebrate Pioneer Day, BYU gave Nathan the day off from classes and we all celebrated with an adult dinner. Somehow, my parents kept all 16 of their grandchildren alive and we enjoyed steaks at Prime Steakhouse. We all wore blue. Almost all of us, at least. Who knew…

For lunch that day, we all gathered at a bowling alley where they gave us the party room. The littlest kids had one lane, then the bigger kids had another, and the women and men each had a lane. It was the first time in my life that I had ever scored the highest in a bowling game. I rarely score over 100, but somehow knocked over enough pins to rake in over 120 points. Are you impressed? You should be. Or something. If we’d had a who-can-throw-the-bowling-ball-fastest contest, Jarv would have won (picture below). Abe would have won if we had a best-form contest. And quite sure Dom would have won if we had a most-debonair-spectator contest. Look at that boy: the epitome of confident, stylish, charming. What a little man!

On Thursday, we cruised down to Jordanelle Reservoir for Dom’s first outing on the boat. As long as we were moving, he enjoyed it. When we stopped to pull someone in or get the next wakeboarder going, he realized he was in a small life jacket that was on the verge of constricting his air supply and got upset. Hey, it was a start.

Other highlights of the vacation: pedis with the women; golfing for the men; lots and lots of swimming at the Marriott pool/hot tubs; family dinners; playing at the park; and a week of great weather.

A smattering of more pics for your viewing pleasure:

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