Camping

 We used to love to camp. Of course, when we camped, it was a last-minute, toss-some-stuff-in-the-car-and-get-food-on-the-way kind of adventure. We have frankly, been too chicken to take the boys camping. Until this weekend.  Friday, we loaded the boys and more camping gear than I have ever seen in our Pathfinder and set out for the great outdoors. (You'll have to excuse the high number of pictures in this post, but we had so much fun!).

Our adventure took us to Hospitality Creek, which is a campground/swim club not far from our home. Hospitality Creek is like camping with training wheels. Our camp site had electric and water. Also, many of the campers had obviously been there for a very long time. This one had hardscaping, ya'll. I think many folks used their campers as summer homes. Frankly, it's a pretty cheap summer house. I don't blame them.

Our trip was nearly over before it began. Cheeky Monkey chose the 20 seconds my back was turned washing a watermelon to grab the knife and slice his thumb. Interestingly I chose that particular knife because it had a sheath. Note: the sheath is no good if it's not on the knife. Ry was sure that we were going to the ER, but after holding pressure for 5 minutes, it had pretty well stopped bleeding and a quick bandaid/tape dressing had us good to go.

Kitty: first aid requirement.

We made dinner over the fire both nights, which the boys found fascinating.

I was trying to get him to give a big thumbs up. He didn't get the joke. Toddlers.

There were s'mores, of course.

S'more what?

And then we took a quick dip in their awesome activity pool. I have no pictures of the activity pool, because, you know, water. Also, we were busy doing activities. Suffice it to say that it was awesome and the boys loved it. There are pictures on the campground's website if you're that interested.

Then in started raining. It rained hard for a very long time. The boys didn't sleep for a while. I'd like to say it was because of the rain, but mostly it was because sleeping in a tent was new and exciting. It was close to 10:30 before we finally got the Monkey asleep.

The LED torches were the best $1 apiece we have ever spent.

Did I mention that it rained a lot? After a few hours, it became clear that we were going to have a rather soggy night if we didn't do something. It was just a few drops inside the tent and some leaking around the edges, but multiply the few drops by the hours by the sheer volume of rain and you get the idea. So, in the pitch dark in the middle of a monsoon, Ry got a tarp out of the truck and saved us from ourselves.

It's not pretty, but it's dry!

 The next morning dawned dry and beautiful. Ry cooked us some eggs.

And we made some much-needed coffee. You know what we used the electric hook up for? A coffeemaker. Totally worth it.

We explored the campground, played on one of the many playgrounds, and enjoyed each other's company for a while before getting ready to go back to the pool.

After the pool it was nap time.

For everyone.

Our second evening was pretty uneventful and the second night in the tent was a lot more ... peaceful. Today we got up, made pancakes and kind of got everything together before a few final hours in the pool before we had to go. This camping trip was everything I love about camping (campfires, sleeping outside, swimming, meeting new friends, clean and accessible showers and bathrooms) and nothing that I hate (feeling like a Yeti after 3 days without a shower, bathing in mosquito repellent). We really had a lot of fun. We are already looking for our next campground for sometime in July.  Seriously successful camp trip.

One of the ways I judge our outings is by how quickly the boys are asleep in the car on the way home.

 About 5 minutes.