Tuesday’s Tell All - Childhood summers

I remember a lot about my summers as a kid. For some weird reason I actually remember more about my life when I was younger than when I got older. I remember doing a lot of camping with my family. When I was real young, we lived in Reno, NV.

My parents, brother and I would go to Lake Tahoe,

and do quite a bit of camping in the Mountains near there.

We had a real cool old truck and an awesome bright red Volvo. I recall one camping trip in particular, where it was just my Dad, my brother and I. I would have been 7 or 8 at the time, and it was in the mountains near Denver. My Dad had given us the assignment of gathering firewood. Daron and my Dad went away from our camp site and I stayed behind looking for wood, picking up what wood I thought would be good for the fire. I picked a rather large piece of wood and saw what I thought was a snake. I screamed as loud as a little girl could scream. Of course my Dad came running as fast as he could. When he got to where I was, he tried to see where this terrible, scary snake was. He was surprised to find that it was a salamander. What ever it was, I didn't like it. Of course my brother loved it and we ended up finding another one. We took them home and named them Sally and Mander.

Some other things that I remember, is going to the air shows with my Dad. He was in the Air Force, so we went a few times. I really enjoyed that.

We did a lot with extended family as well. My Grandparents would take their trailer up to Little Mill campground in American Fork Canyon. We would go up to visit, and meet up with Aunts and Uncles for a picnic. I miss having my Grandma around, she was a great lady. We would also go to Rockport with my other Grandparents and camp for a few days. We had some good times with all the cousins.

My most favorite thing to do as a kid was to go to Canyonlands. I went for the first time when I was 10. I'm sure my Dad wondered what he had gotten himself into when I started to whine after only hiking for 2 miles. I quickly snapped out of it and had the best time ever. We went every year after that and I even went when I was 5 months pregnant with Brittany. I stopped going until 2006 when I was able to take Tanner to the same special place that we have all come to love.

Jennifer 1974

Tanner 2006