Camping!

We decided last minute to take a much needed break from the heat and head up to Woods Canyon Lake to go camping. Our family loves camping, but haven't been for a couple summers, so it was definitely time!

I'll review our camping trip, rating the things we did from 1* - to 5*'s.

Catching Things****:

The girls loved finding animals/insects to catch and naming each one.

Here is Steve the caterpillar. They also caught another girl caterpillar that was named Cassidy by Liz. (Such fitting names for caterpillars - don't you think?)

They caught a crawdad named Kevin and tried to catch all of his friends, but their sharp pincher claws deterred them from being really brave and catching them all.

Here's Hobart the Frog.

Also caught were ladybugs and "ugly bugs".

Relaxing in the hammocks*****:

Noelle, Brynn and Kirk all took great naps in the hammocks. It's so nice to just laze around and enjoy being able to be outside! Saturday seemed like the longest day on earth. We got done having breakfast, making a fire, taking a hike, hanging out in the hammock, and catching a few bugs, and it was like 9:15! So great!!

Eating yummy things*****:
There's nothing like hot dogs roasted over a fire, or smore's, or peach cobbler! My girls loved cooking things in the fire, and kept marshmallows in their pockets at all times, just so they'd be ready whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Going to the lake*****:

We took our kayaks out to the lake to paddle around. It was a perfect day, sunny but cool. The lake isn't super huge, so you can paddle all the way around it and enjoy yourself in the beautiful outdoors.

After we were done kayaking, we had a picnic lunch in the woods by the lake. Our PB&J's were especially delicious sitting on a picnic blanket in the woods!

We were even lucky enough to see a bald eagle in the wild! I was super excited and started singing America the Beautiful. :) He was perched up in a tree right by us, then flew around for a while looking for food, then came back to rest up in his tree. It was so cool!

Staying on the Rim****:

It was fun to stay up on the rim, the view was amazing! We hiked out to the rim a few times to watch the clouds roll by and also to watch the sunset.

The girls liked pretending to "hang off" the ledge to try and freak me out.

Sleeping in a tent*:

Okay, this definitely isn't my favorite part about camping. As I was going to sleep on Friday night, I was talking to Kirk about how much fun we'd had, how much I love camping, and how glad I was that we had come. As I woke up a million times in the night freezing, and just not sleeping well, I was cursing him and the "great" idea to go camping. When Liz woke up in the morning, she said that she'd had "the worst sleep ever" and I had to agree.

Part of our problem was that in our rush to pack up and get out of town, most of us forgot pillows. We had two pillows and one pillow pet, that Brynn didn't want to use as a pillow, but just wanted to hold. Try sleeping without a pillow, on an air mattress that you just roll to the center, and freezing to death - yeah, no fun!

Having a fire*****:

Like I said, our girls loved having a fire and roasting anything and everything over it. We found some magic wood in the forest that Kirk said was pitch wood. It burned like crazy, like it had been soaked in gasoline and didn't go out, even in the rain.

Bugs*:

Okay, maybe the bugs weren't our favorite part either, especially these "ugly bugs" that would fly into your hair, follow you around, and hiss at you. Yuck!

As we were going to sleep at night, I heard Marissa tell Noelle, in a very forced calm voice, that she had a bug crawling up her pj pant leg, and that she needed some help to get it off. Noelle politely declined, so Kirk got up and went to help. She had one of these ugly bugs crawling up the inside of her pj pants, inside her sleeping bag. I was thoroughly grossed out. I was amazed at how calm she stayed through the whole thing, even when Kirk went to brush it off and couldn't because it's claws were grabbing on for dear life. Blah!

Weather*****:

The weather was great - especially coming from 100+degree weather at home! In the afternoon we enjoyed a huge lightning/thunder storm where there were huge claps of thunder that seemed to shake the earth, and then huge lightening bolts that lit up the sky. Then it started raining, so we went into the tent and played games and ate a bunch of candy until the rain stopped.

Watching the girls play together*****:

It was so great to have time to just enjoy one another's company. Marissa and Noelle planned out their life, planning on living next door to each other, Noelle helping Marissa with her 5 kids, while she's the nice mom with 3 kids. Liz and Brynn played "fairies" forever, built little fairy houses and basically followed each other around. All the girls thought they were really funny and played and laughed the whole time. It was so much fun!

So, despite bugs and sleeping like crap, camping was great and something we want to do again soon!