Camping

This year we stayed close to home for our yearly camping trip. About 20 minutes away is a nice lake with camping. The lake is surrounded by trees so it's like you're miles away from civilization. Besides not wanting to travel far, there were flushing toilets (I hate taking little kids to use the poopshoots, which were up by our site), showers if needed, a playground for the kids and not to mention the lake itself. Children under 4 were not allowed to play in the water, ecoli and other bacteria, so we got a little raft and life jackets to go out onto the lake with. Because we were late to reserve a campsite, we were stuck with one of the primitive sites. That means we had to wheelbarrow everything to our site. That part wasn't fun, pushing ALL our stuff uphill (and we have a lot of stuff) but it was away from the cars and we didn't have to worry about the kids running out into the road. Pretty sure we won't ever do a primitive site again, at least not until everyone is old enough to help.

When we got there, the parking lot was completely full. The camp director said we could park and unload by the entrance but that we'd have to park down at the lower parking lot until something opened up. Great. We had discovered one of the reasons why it was so crowded, besides being a beautiful day, there was a wedding happening. So we backed in and made a wheelbarrow run up. When we came back down, I saw someone loading their fishing gear into the back of their truck so I asked if they were leaving, which they were, and stood there so no one else could park there while Doug got in the truck and moved it. One vehicle down. Did I mention we have a lot of camping stuff? We have so much that we have to take out the back seats in the van and use the pickup. So after the truck is parked, we take another load up. On the way up, Shan, Bry and Aid want to play at the park. I tell the older ones to keep an eye on Aid, they have to be very careful because there are a lot of people around and really emphasized that they have GOT to watch him. Yes, mom, yes, mom, we will. After we got up to the site we decided to put the tent up over the table since that was a pain to put up and we didn't need extra hands trying to "help". When we had just gotten it set up, here comes a park ranger, Shan and Aid in tow, Bry got there just before them. Apparently Aid had wandered off while the other two played and other adults were getting concerned because no one was around claiming him. Another Great. He asked if all these kids were ours and yes, they were and then he said something about it being too much of a responsiblilty for the older ones to watch him, to which Doug's response was, "Apparently." Now, both of us are embarrassed since he just made us feel like irresponsible adults that shouldn't have four children and we still have two vehicles to unload. What a way to start a vacation, but at least it wasn't raining! We got the rest of our stuff unloaded and was even able to park the van right next to the truck. By this time the kids were tired, hungry, whining and crying. We ate late and put the kids to bed early.

Enjoying hot chocolate.

This was too funny. I watched her as she scooted her chair away from the fire and when she did, her hot chocolate dumped over without her realizing it. When she sat down and looked in her cup, this was the result. Glad I had the camera for this one.

The rest of the time was fairly nice. We took a hike around the lake, it was beautiful and did some exploring. The kids played a lot down at the playground. My parents came up for a while one day and we went out on the lake with the raft. I think Papa had fun. The nights for me were not fun. I'm a light sleeper so that combined with an unfamiliar place, bed, and children (I cannot sleep with kids near me) make for a long night. The last two nights Liv woke up right around two am coughing and would cough for a good 1/2 hour. The coyotes would wake me up along with the kids wiggling themselves out of their sleeping bags. We were constantly covering the two younger ones up. But despite all that, we love to camp and the memories we get from it are priceless.

They were watching the bubbles come up from someone scuba diving in the lake.

On our hike.

It didn't take long for someone to poop out. By the end Doug and I were both carrying the younger ones on our backs.

Picture time! It was just so pretty, couldn't help myself.

That's an inch worm on the end of her nose. She had that thing crawling all over her. Ew!