A Camping Trip to Remember

So, here we are at another camping weekend. We were supposed to go with two other families, but they both had to cancel. We almost didn't go. We had never camped without our friends. But, we thought, we got this. And you know what? We did!

We arrived at Pine Grove Campground by Lake Mary in Flagstaff. It is by far the nicest campground we have ever been too. The kids loved all the trees, and ran out of the car to play.


Noah picked me flowers, as always.


The found these round rocks with a "nest" in the middle. I told the kid's it was Bigfoot's nest. They believed me for a few seconds.


It even had a little entry way.




Noah climbing. Seriously, these kids climb every thing.


Every tree like this was a balance beam.




Once they got higher than David's head, it made me nervous.



They had no problem going up. It was getting down that they needed help.


We went for a nice walk.




And found spooky old trees.


Noah is our little woodsman. He loves to collect fire wood.


Just hangin' out.


Here's our camp set up.


Noah loves to collect fire wood, then loves to start a fire. He could've played with fire all weekend.



Ben relaxing.


Then, Ben goes in the tent and comes out and says he lost a tooth. What? Um, I didn't think the tooth fairy would know where we were or if she'd carry any singles in the woods. It's the tooth on the left in the pic.


Emily was obsessed with going to the balance beam log.


Then, Ben joined them and went all the way to the top of the tree, about 10 feet. I was not there for that or I would have stopped them. But, I grabbed my camera and went over when they hollered for me.


That's all good, but how do you get down when you are taller than Dad. A branch.


We made smores.



It looks bright out, but it was already like 7:30 at this point.


Noah brought me more flowers.




I had to make a centerpiece.


We did sparklers.



We fit a lot into our first day!

We all slept great and when we woke up, the tooth fairy came! Yea!


There is this beautiful lake that goes on for miles about 2 minutes from camp, so we checked that out on day 2.



Noah was cold, so he put on my coat. He looks like he's wearing a Harry Potter robe.



Me and my man.


Ben likes rock climbing. Noah is the wood gatherer and fire starter. Em is the tree climber.






Then, back to camp for more relaxing.




We went for another walk and found this tree we called Woolly Mammoth Tree since it looks like it has tusks.


They are way more brave when there are trees to hold on to on the way up.


And Dad to the rescue....again. No wonder his back hurt.


Then, at the end of that walk, it started to rain. And it didn't stop for 12 hours. We ran back from our hike and jumped in the car. David suggested we just go for a little drive since it was raining and we were all sitting in the car. So, we went to this other lake called Mormon Lake. The amount of green was just unbelievable for Arizona. Not much of a lake though.


Then, we got back and the rain had slowed. I went to the restroom and saw this cute little green frog.


We sat in the tent for a few hours relaxing and reading. We decided we couldn't make dinner in the rain, so we drove an hour round trip to Flagstaff and got Chick Fil A. Then, we came back, ran in the tent and talked and played games for hours. We were playing War.


We basically all slept horribly. It was thundering and lightening all night long. It just rained and rained and rained. We were cozy and warm, but it was just crazy. I've never been that much in a storm. We woke up the next day and saw the sun. Bacon makes everything better.


We went for another walk and guess what we found? Another balance beam tree...




We made some smores since we missed out the night before and packed up and headed home. It was a great weekend. We took a different route home and man it was pretty. It has to be one of the prettiest roads in Arizona.


But, the kids didn't see any of it. :)


As if that wasn't enough. We headed to the Beach Blast at church that night. Oh my gosh, did the kids have a good time. There were slides and bounce houses and a mechanical shark. What more could they ask for?


And then we slept, and slept and slept....