Camping

This year we camped with a 11mo old who is learning to walk, a little two year old who turned 3, during camping.  A 5 year old, who had his training wheels taken off his bike, while camping and required no assistance in riding without them, (I think we waited too long to remove them)! A 7 year old, who had a couple big bike crashes and 8 1/2 year old, who was upgraded to a bigger bike.  She was aprehensive at first and learned to love it by the end.  

We arrived on Wednesday. It rained that night, with a huge thunder and lightning storm. Then Thursday it cleared up, and in the afternoon we got hit with a monsoon! Our friends the Tunstill's camped with us, along with my parents and Mark's parents. The rain out matched us.  We heard 2.8 inches of rain fell that day! Thankfully we figured it all out. The camp host let us hold up in a park shelter that had a fire place and lots of picnic tables. Here we had a chance to dry out, get food and have James' 3rd birthday party.

By Friday morning things cleared up.   Saturday was even better.  We were able to play in the river! I love camping!  I cooked all our hot meals over an open fire with a cast iron Dutch oven.  That was a fun challenge for me.  This is the only time of the year that I endulge in paper plates, and I love the freedom in not having to wash a bunch of dishes.  I did forgo plastic water bottles and used our stainless steel ones to refill.  However, my in laws brought a case and I found my children swiping theirs rather than refilling their own bottles.  The water there tasted better than my parents well water!