Camping

We look forward to camping over Memorial weekend each year. This was our sixth year – we’ve camped in the pouring rain (unfortunately, more than once) and the hot sun. We’ve camped with kids as young as 2 months old and we’ve camped when I was enormously pregnant. Even in the most miserable of circumstances (wet sleeping bags, muddy everything, and swarms of mosquitoes), we have always had a good time. A lot of the fun comes from spending time with great friends.

We wanted to be back home for church on Sunday so we took Abigail out of school early on Friday so we could get a jump start on the weekend. The food is always a highlight of camping. We had a great Dutch oven dinner, peach cobbler, and smores… yummy!

Yummy Watermelon

Just after our kids went to bed and we were ready to relax by the campfire, two large vehicles pulled into the campsite next to us and out poured a group 10-12 teenage boys. Thankfully we were at a church campground so they had a few responsible adults with them to help keep them in line. They proceeded to set up camp and act as teenage-boys do until well after 1am. I thought for sure our kids would wake up in the morning before them (when I was a teenager I could sleep til noon without a problem), but at 5am the boys were up chopping wood and having a good ole time. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most restful night for me, but to my surprise Jason (and the girls) were completely unfazed by the noise and slept til 8am.

This year we tried a different campground that offers lots of fun activities.

We went a canoe ride.

We spent most of Saturday enjoying the giant slip-n-slide.

One of the rules of the slide is that you have to wear water shoes. Justin wears a size 16 shoe so finding water shoes for him with only a few days notice was impossible. And since I wasn’t feeling any desire to use the slip-n-slide Jason was going merely spectate. I was curious if Jason would enjoy the slide so I asked a friend to take him down with her. I half expected him to refuse to go with her (he can be quite the mamma’s boy) but he completely cooperated and…

He LOVED it!

Of course then he wanted to go again, and again. As soon as he got off the tube he signed for “more”. Justin borrowed water shoes a few times, but a size 11 on a size 16 foot is quite awkward. Thankfully we were able to pawn Jason off a few more times with friends.

Lots of work for only one night, but once again we had a great time and look forward to next year. Hopefully we’ll actually make it on another campout before then.