Stake Lagoon Day

When I was little, my family lived in Ogden, Utah. In fact, we moved there half way through my Kindergarten year, and moved away after I finished 5^th grade. So essentially, all of my elementary years were spent in Ogden.

Aah, Utah life. Utah is full of Mormons. Being as young as I was, I didn’t really realize there was anything different about living there than anywhere else. At any rate, the big theme park in Utah is Lagoon, located in Farmington. Back then—and maybe still? I really don’t know—Lagoon would have these Stake Lagoon Days. When our stake had Stake Lagoon Day, we could get free (or discounted?) ride tickets, and our family would pile in the car and head on over. It was fun. My favorite ride there was the Scrambler. I’m positive I couldn’t handle a ride like that today. I was an incredible wimp though, and would never go on the roller coaster. Everyone said it was super fun, but I was not having it. But everyone has their price, I guess, and somebody offered me a dollar if I would ride the roller coaster. A dollar! I did it for a dollar. And strangely enough, I loved it. It was exhilarating! And that was the end of my roller coaster phobia. You couldn’t get me to go on the Collasses, with its two loops, where you actually went upside down. I do think that eventually I tried Collasses, but it’s possible that my loop experience was later on at Magic Mountain in California. Can’t remember. All I know is, I learned to love the roller coaster at Lagoon, on Stake Lagoon Day.

Let's Get Together

One of our favorite movies growing up was The Parent Trap. Good ol' Hayley Mills. It wasn't just a great movie, it was a movie we watched over and over and over again. And we studied it, looking for that subtle little line down the screen when both the twins were facing forward at the same time...that was truly great stuff. My best friend Karie liked to watch it with us, too. There was a time when we probably had the entire movie memorized.

And there were definitely our favorite parts..."My name is, Miss Inch. Uh, yes, Miss Inch." She really had to check the paper twice to make sure she got her own name right? Then there was the part during the dance where the guy caught a cake and then tried to catch the punch bowl. Even funnier was when Miss Inch tried to save a cake by raising it in the air only to have it stick to a beak on the totem pole and then come down, splat, right on to her face. There were lines we would say over and over again..."Where did you hear about her?" We just loved the way Verbina said "her." And "Oh honey, don't you play with the big girls, you'll be in way over your het." Yes, she said it like that. We laughed and laughed when the girls got Vicky to bang sticks together and rub sugar water all over herself. Or when Mitch fell into the pool. We also thought it was funny when Maggie said Vicky had "electric hips."

So one day, Karie and I climbed the tree in front of our house, got on the roof, and walked over to the roof over the carport. There we could hide in under the triangle part of the house roof. We liked to sit there and talk and talk and plan and plan. And one day, we planned a camping trip. See, we used to go camping a lot when I was a kid. Sometimes in the afternoon Dad would get home from work and would ask who wanted to go camping. Were we really that spontaneous? Maybe they were like me and planned it ahead but waited to tell us until it was time, to avoid our disappointment if something came up at the last minute. But it always seemed like we went on spontaneous camping trips. And most of the time Karie or some other friends would join us for the fun. We all piled in the car and drove up in to the mountains. We popped popcorn in the fire and sang silly songs and just had a great time.

So yeah. Karie and I got up this little scheme, that day on the roof, to take a camping trip, just the two of us and Mom. But how would we convince Mom that we should do it--that we should just up and leave everyone else out of the fun? We got our heads together and delivered the following presentation to my mom (using little puppets to do the talking, if I remember correctly):

"We've decided we're getting gypped."
"Yeah, gypped."
"We've decided we want to have our campout together."

Okay, so I can't remember all we said, but we had a great time using that scene from Parent Trap to present our idea.

It must have been good, because it worked. Either that or my parents were just super cool and really validated us and our ideas. (They were really good at that, I think). So we did it. We went camping, just the three of us.

How funny is it that what I really remember is our scheming to go, rather than the actual camping trip itself?

Oh, and I remember the triangle popsicles...remember that, Mom?

Camping

Living in Ogden, we were very close to the mountains. That made it really easy for us to go camping, a lot. Maybe we started going to complete some things for 4H, or maybe we just started going because camping is fun.


I remember packing up our things, piling in the car, and heading up the mountain. Most of the time, if not all, Mom would make up a big bowl of Birdseed. It wasn't real birdseed, it was a trail mix type snack that we just loved because it had things like peanuts, froot loops, m&ms, and raisins in it. She would fill the biggest Tupperware bowl, and we would all chow down on that yumminess. But we only got it when we went camping.


Sometimes our friends would come along, another reason why I think it may have started because of 4H. My parents have always been kid people, so the more kids the merrier.


It was so easy for us to go camping, that I remember one night I was out in the back yard playing in the sand box, when my dad, just home from work, came out and asked if I wanted to go camping. We were all going on a completely spontaneous campout. We were able to decide to go and pull ourselves together at dinner time, and make it up the mountain with enough time to enjoy our night, even though we had started so late in the day.


Pretty awesome, I'd say!


One night I remember we were making popcorn over the fire, and a dud kernel popped out of the fire and right onto the bottom of Celeste's night gown and burned a hole in it. Random memory!