Mud in your Face

Friday afternoon we left for a camping trip. We hadn't been camping for over 2 years which is extremely unusual for us. We headed for a campground about an hour away and hoped to be able to find 2 spots. We were camping with some friends of ours. There wasn't much left when we got there, but we managed ot find 2 spots together. The sites were situated at the top of a small hill deep under the canopy of the woods. This is the view from where we had to leave the cars:

If you look closely you can see our tents.

After setting up camp, we had a campfire and ate the most scrumptious dutch oven meal made by Rochelle. The kids played "Blurt" (a card game), and well all enjoyed ourselved. Jacob thought the whole experience was a blast. We went to bed keeping our fingers crossed that the rain would hold off. The last 4 times we've camped its rained signficantly. A little rain doesn't scare me away, but it was beginning to get ridiculous. Sure enough, we woke up to the sound of rain. When we emerged from our tents, we were greeted by a giant mud pit. The fact that the sites were sloped, turned the mud pit into a mud slide. Even the adults were slipping and sliding as we tried to make out way down to the restrooms. Poor little Jacob face planted in the mud, and I thought I was close to following him. We knew even if it stopped raining the site was not drying out anytime this week and the forecast was calling for rain off and on all week-end.

This picture doesn't really do the mud pit any justice

We decided to throw the towel in, packed out and went home. We couldn't get the cars back into the site without risking getting stuck so we hauled everything back and forth. Meanwhile, the kids entertained themselves in the car. This was the idea of the moms who were not looking forward to 8 muddy kids.

As we were leaving we stopped in the shower house to use the bathrooms. They were still gross camp bathrooms but were a huge step up from the outhouse without lights that was in our part of the campground. Bella walked into a stall and exclamied "Mom, these potties are BEAUTIFUL, I LOVE these potties. I do NOT like those potties that go way way down!" It was pretty funny.

Don't feel to bad for us though because we ended up having a great week-end all around. The girls were most disappointed that they only got to camp one night and they didn't get to fish. We let them all sleep in sleeping bags on the floor Saturday and Sunday night. We even let them sleep on our floor one night and Jacob joined them for the first time. I usually make him sleep in his crib to keep my sanity. We intend to take them fishing and soon as their Dad gets home from the golf course this morning.

Jared made it home in time to watch both the Buckeye and Cougar football. The Buckeyes barely pulled off a win but the BYU game was amazing and I would have felt REALLY bad if he had missed it. (well, he had set it to record so he would've watched it later, but thats not the same)

As for me, I got something I've wanted for a loooong time. I have tried to convince Jared to get one on several occasions, but have never succeeded. Well, packing up camp, I started to again plead my case. He reminded me that I had just gotten paid (i'm my neighbors version of latchkey) and could do what I wanted with the money. So, between the Buckeye and Cougar game, we loaded up and bought this:

We still had all the food I was supposed to make for dinner Saturday night. So, we called the Pearsons and had them come over to "finish" our campout and pressed pause on the BYU game. We made dutch oven potatoes in my firepit (I know its kinda hill -billyish), and foil fajita dinners and dumpcake in the oven. It was another great evening!