It starts a week before with preparing the menu. My husband likes stellar food when camping. In fact, I nicknamed him Top Chef. Then, we have grocery shopping and making some food ahead of time, marinading steak for kabobs, making pumpking bread and pasta salad, etc. 24 hours before we leave, I'm packing everything up. Sleeping bags, blankets, gloves, thermals, coats, shorts, sunscreen. It doesn't end. The kids were super excited and sitting in the car waiting to go about 2 hours before we left.
Then, we get to camp and it takes a few hours to set everything up. We got a new tent, and the kids couldn't wait to play in it.
Then it was off to explore the woods with friends.
David's nickname when we are camping is Top Chef. Hot dogs won't do. He makes steak kabobs. I'll take that any day!
We had a group campsite and the kids drove around and around the paved loop on their bikes. I'm not even kidding when I say that Noah did about 100 laps a day.
Ben who just got his training wheels off was still a little rusty on his bike and couldn't start pedaling on his own. After this trip, he's a pro!
David got a new camp lounger chair for an early Father's Day gift.
Noah channeling his inner Hunger Games.
The next day we took a little trip to Sunset Crater. It's a site where lava exploded about 900 years ago.
The Peaks are in the background and still have some snow on them.
Here's the one photo of me just to prove I was there.
Ben and a really cool tree.
Noah looking at a sign and looking confused.
We made smores, but Noah likes plain marshmallows.
The last morning the boys had a breakfast of a whole pack of bacon. They were in heaven!
It was a great weekend spent with friends, but truly it's exhausting. It took 2 hours to break down camp and pack everything up. Then, it took another 2 hours to unpack the car when we got home. I'm still doing laundry 24 hours later. I ask myself why do we do this? And then I look at my photos and see these two of my girl...
...and I realize I'll do anything for my kids. To see them happy and having fun is worth all the work. Don't get me wrong, we have fun too just in between all the work. And we are doing it again in a month!
2 comments:
Awesome photos, Gina!! :)
Some fun facts -
I've never been camping and don't plan to. My idea of camping is sleeping overnight in a gigantic motor home. Jim says that doesn't count, but I've never done that either, so in my mind, that's "roughing it".
You're camping and I'm here wondering if we're ever going to get to be in our swimming pool even once this summer. We've had such ups and downs with the temperatures, and right when the water warmed up to an acceptable level, the rains set in again for a week and now the water temp is down below what we even started with when we opened the pool (it's a freezing 62 degree water temp right now). Normally we've already been in there a few times, and here we are going into June and although it gets hot here again this week, it's more rain again and drops back down to upper 60s by the weekend. I'm tired of this goofy weather.
Sarah and her friends like to camp in our backyard in the little tent we have. It's not so much work, lol.
Well, that's all. I enjoyed your post and photos. Hope you have a great week.
Love, Linda
wow, I love the pics. It sounds like you guys had a great weekend.I didn't know that you had volcanic action in Az. even as long ago as mentioned but it is interesting to be able to still see that black lava earth. A good learning experience for the kids too. Did Ben find any Big foot footprints or was he looking? Noah looked like he was fitting in just fine with his Bike action. Still liking his longer hair. Makes him look so much older . Lucky you having an on call chef. although the camp out hot dogs would sound great too. Anyway Glad you had a good weekend and the tent looks like it was nice and spacious as well. A lot of effort on parents part but some unforgettable memories for the kids.
Love,
G.
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