A Camping We Will Go!

For the holiday weekend we went camping with some friends of ours. We decided to go for 2 nights this time. I think we have only gone for one night before. Just getting the camping spot was an adventure. We weren't able to reserve one, so my friend and I drove up early Thursday morning to get a "walk-in" spot. We got the 2nd to last spot available. We felt like our prayers were answered considering we would have had a lot of disappointed kids if things hadn't worked out. My friend, Leslie, and I even put up the tents all by ourselves. (We had never set up our new tent before).

It was incredibly beautiful up in the mountains. Marissa asked us why we go camping and we told her it was to appreciate nature but also to appreciate all that we do have at home ex. running water, clean toilets, no mosquitoes, soft beds, etc.

Zach was totally in his element. After the first night, he woke up in the morning and got dressed immediately and headed outside to have fun. I don't see him that happy and content very often but it was neat to find him entertained by things other than electronics. Some of the older kids had fashioned bow and arrows with sticks and elastics and they played with those the whole time. They even got pretty good at it!

Mason however was completely out of his element. He was so grumpy. He was getting over a cold and coughed a lot the first night. He was not a "happy camper" at all. But he did pretty well as long as we held him the whole time!

Marissa and Hailey enjoyed themselves too, other than the fact that they couldn't stand getting dirty. It must be a girl thing because I couldn't seem to even keep Zach's and Mason's faces clean for 5 minutes.

We had a lot of fun with our friends. Our friend, Mike, is quite the dutch oven specialist so our meals were great! We even had fun going on a little hike and exploring a little more.

After 2 nights of camping, however, I too was craving a nice shower and soft bed. I'm glad that we were able to go and make some memories with our kids though. After we got back and cleaned up everything, Dave and I went to a movie. My sister was watching the kids for us and took this picture of Mason. He crashed at 6:30 pm and slept until about 7:30am the next morning. I think camping just wore him out!