last month, we drove down this dusty road to our first campout as a family....
we unrolled our borrowed tent only to roll it back up because we were missing the poles!
thankfully, heather and aaron brought an extra tent! the kids were so happy to climb inside once it was finally up.
ethan was thrilled to have a tent all to himself! our air mattresses would not all fit into our 2nd borrowed tent, so we put ethan in his own tent. (don't go judging us for the air mattresses. we're camping, not suffering!) since ethan had never been camping before, he didn't know that he should be scared in the dark all by himself in mr. sam's little tent. :) he did GREAT! i love this little boy...
we were so blessed to spend our first campout with the families in our small group. we loved the fellowship with them, and our children adore the older kids that were with us. if caroline would've seen these girls in the tent, she would have quickly filled that empty spot next to grace!
these boys remind me soooo much of their daddies!!!!
the little kids quickly found a dirt pile and got to work!
this girl cracks me up with her expressions- "let me tell you about how i gashed open my head the other day..."
art was in charge of chopping the firewood. he's a little crazy.
steak was on the menu for dinner... mmmm... good stuff. sometimes, it's a little too much work to cut steak with plastic utensils. so angela did what i did...
after dinner, we enjoyed some yummy s'mores. my favorite part of camping, of course!
apparently, the three year old girls need a lesson in how to eat s'mores. here are caroline and savannah to show you how not to eat them.
caroline loved every bite of her treat, no matter how she got it to her mouth! :)
gracie can usually be found making at least one of my children smile. i'm telling you, i love the way these older kids love my kids. on this campout, they asked several times if they could take my kids to go do something. you want to take them on a walk?! sure! you want to take them to go look for deer!? sure! you want to take them for a week!? :)
the little boys had the most fun playing with the fire... what is it with guys and fire!?
after s'more s'mores and some good praise and worship time around the fire, it was eventually time for bed. while the kids naturally protested the inevitable, they were somewhat excited to get all tucked in to their beds under the stars. we continued our reading of little house on the prairie this night, and wouldn't you know that our next chapter was titled "the wolfpack"! just what ethan needs to hear before frolicking off to bed alone in the woods... a chapter about wolves circling laura and mary's house at night. soooooo mama cut that chapter short and we finished it once we were back inside our safe brick house with a nightlight. :)
ethan and caroline actually did pretty well going to bed. we left them both with flashlights and went back to the campfire. caroline called for us once to kill a few mosquitoes, and then we heard nothing else from her. we watched her put on a bit of a light show with her flashlight for awhile (and her friend lola was doing the same thing nearby in her her tent!).
and where's amelia, you might be asking?! in the comforts of her own home with gram! we decided to do this first campout without her since she was not walking and we were not sure about how the whole camping thing would go in the first place. :) though we missed her, it was nice to be able to give jen a hand with her amelia and to relax around the campfire without a crawling, squirmy baby! thank you, gram!
so while gram and amelia were snug in their beds at our house, we FROZE that night! i tried so hard not to overpack (which is my default), and MAN, i wish i would have thrown about 8 or 70 more blankets in the back of our van! i guess i slept. i'm sure i did at some point. but i remember lying there in the very very cold night air wishing i was asleep-- several times. and as soon as it was daylight, caroline woke up asking who turned the lights on. i think it was 5:45. aaron and jen were busy making breakfast when we rolled out of our tent a few minutes later.
we ran out of eggs pretty quickly, and i happily volunteered to run down the road to get more eggs. jen felt really bad for asking me to leave the campsite for this errand, but i gladly hopped in our van, cranked up the heat, and headed to the store. we were not running out of eggs this time....
here are val and lily enjoying breakfast by the campfire. i could tell by the look on val's face that she was not thrilled about having her picture taken at 7 AM, but isn't she beautiful?! inside and out, what a beautiful girl.
it didn't take long for the boys to get back to the fire!
and isn't this what small groups are about? the fellowship, the time spent together with brothers and sisters in Christ!?
after breakfast, we headed out to search for some deer. caroline found three deer for our group!
i love this shot of rocky and his daughter lily looking for more wildlife.
we followed a group of deer across the road...
the kids had fun looking at the deer prints on the road.
valerie created a scavenger hunt for the older kids, and she was so sweet to make one up for the little guys as well! here's the preschool crew getting ready for our hunt!
lola did not get extra points for this neat turtle shell her daddy found, but it was interesting nonetheless.
after our scavenger hunt, we took a walk down to the beach. megan was so sweet to walk with millie (aka, the other amelia).
i could wallpaper my bathroom with the silly pictures i have of this girl! (but aren't we all glad wallpaper is out!? or is it back in now? i'm so not up on trends. please tell me wallpaper will never come back.)
it was a gorgeous day for a walk on the beach.
this girl will take any opportunity to get some sand between her toes.
sweet friends playing happily... who probably got in trouble for throwing sand at each other 5 minutes after i took this picture. :)
i love this shot of the group down by the water.
caroline and georgia had a ball singing ring around the rosy.
what a beautiful beach. thank You, God, for Your creativity!
ethan's favorite part about camping was using mr. sam's walkie talkie. and sleeping in mr. sam's tent. mr. sam, you're 2 for 2!
i had to laugh at this picture because as much as caroline enjoyed our camping adventure, she was initially a little dumbfounded by the whole finding-your-way-by-the-light-of-the-fire and you-just-eat-your-dinner-in-a-plate-in-your-lap-because-we're-camping thing. on friday night, i joked that she was ready to check in to the closest hotel. and here she is, finally finding a wifi connection at the campground. ha!
we all packed up on saturday night and enjoyed some delicious grilled chicken before heading home. rocky was the master of the grill that weekend!
i told you that chicken was delicious!
so as we're all eating, these deer walk right behind our campfire. like really close. so i naturally whip out my camera to click away, and i can't get it focused. i try and try again, and it's just blurry. brian is across the campfire from me, and i can't get his help because if i move, the deer will run off. and i don't think anyone else was even taking pictures. i mean, it's not like the lochness monster just emerged from the lake... they're just deer. but still, i was so close to them. and here's what they looked like through my camera with the manual focus switched on. i now know where that button is and how easy it is for your finger to accidentally move it from auto to manual.
as we drove out of the campground, i was thrilled to see this little deer chomping away at some grass. so while this is not the most amazing photo of a deer you've ever seen, it's in focus.
so these two kiddos surely loved camping. ethan's favorite thing may have been the walkie talkies, but my favorite thing about camping was watching ethan and caroline love camping.
so it's official. we like to camp. here's our official "we like to camp" family (minus amelia) photo.
the week after this campout, jen and sam found an almost new family tent for us at a yard sale, so we now own our very own family tent-- complete with poles!!! :) we would love to go camping again before it gets too hot, but that window is rapidly slamming shut... so we will probably wait till the fall to go camping again. we are surrounded with family and friends that go often, so it should not be too hard to find some good camping company. our first camping trip was certainly one we will not forget!
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