We Went Camping! We love to camp but for some reason we hadn’t made it out yet this year. After looking at the calender we realized that this past weekend was our last chance to go before soccer and winter took over. We went up American Fork Canyon and found a spot near where we have camped in the past with Nettesheim family. We didn’t get there until 6:30 and it was packed up there. We unloaded and set up our tent and got some fire wood. We convinced the neighbors that we weren’t leaving because we had brought our dog and they had their dogs and no one was going to get any sleep and… Anyway, they asked us if we could find another spot and we said no because there weren’t any other spots and then it was all good 🙂

Camping requires SOO MUCH STUFF! I think it's because you have to bring your whole kitchen.

getting camp all set up!

All the kids trying out their sleeping bags!

Raymond"s first camping trip! (Erica - he is wearing his Detroit gear for you but I forgot to send you a picture - pretend i did)

Joel and Brady came rollin in a little before 8:00. They got right to work cookin a delicious dutch oven dinner. Instead of doing Tin Foil Dinners or Turtles or whatever your people call them, they have perfected the dutch oven version for a large amount of people. Hamburger on bottom and loaded with potatoes, carrots, fresh green beans, add the cream soup and salt and pepper. Dutch oven it and YUM. It wasn’t done until 10pm but I had brought kid food and we all had plenty to eat and drink. Ben made a yummy Banana Chocolate Chip Cake in his dutch oven so we were more than satisfied when we crawled into our sleeping bags that night.

Uncle Joel

camping "crock pot" dinner

Uncle Brady

Ryan, Tara and girls pulled in shortly after Joel and Brady. They set up their tent and all the kids went exploring. Rose thought she was big enough to go out with the other kids. Packer was Mr Dirty hands – he loves exploring. Benji loved having cousins and uncles to be with and he got to stay up until 11. Cali kept asking when we were going to camp – I think she meant when she could sleep in the tent because she was worn out. We ate and sat at the fire and took care of kids and talked until late and enjoyed good company.

brothers - Joel, Brady, Ryan

Raymond and I - after midnight - Fireside

Brewer was a perfect camping dog - HE LOVED IT.

We ate a good breakfast the next morning and sipped on lots of hot chocolate before it got to hot to enjoy it. Ryan’s family had places to go so they broke camp early and we followed shortly after that. I love camping. I love that the canyon is just up the road from our home. We live in a beautiful spot. I’m ready to go again.

Joel teaching Fire starting to my kids, he was a good sport to get up at 7:30 with them.

Benji with the big kids - Kylee got a bow for her bday.

fun in the dirt

Ryan and Tara breaking camp

I guess I should document the one bad part of the trip because anyone that was there is probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned the fact that ROSE, sweet wonderful Rose, DID NOT SLEEP. She woke us all up several times and caused a sleepless night for a few of us. I went to bed at 1am and she woke up at 2am. She wanted a bottle warmed up in the microwave… so she cried BEEP BEEP loudly and woke everyone up. I don’t know why I didn’t bring the microwave camping (heavy sarcasm)! She spent 3 hours in my sleeping bag, laying, playing, fake snoring, asking for beep beep, but NOT sleeping. Ben finally got her to lay down around 5am and of course Raymond woke up right then. And then Rose was up for good at 7am. It was not restful. So now I am on a mission to break Rose of the bottle and the beep beep. She is almost 2. She doesn’t need warm milk.  BUT she thinks she needs them. I’ll tell you about that battle another day… The Beautiful thing is: I got a Saturday nap in and have already forgotten how bad the night was. LETS GO CAMPING!