Family Camping

We went on a family camping trip to Cunningham Falls State Park this weekend. The Wrights went with us and Gregory and Jack joined us for one night (Gregory's one year old son was sick so his wife stayed home with him).

Wesley was thrilled to "bam, bam, bam!" with the mallet.
We purchased a new tent for this trip. Chris has a backpacking tent but it isn't big enough for all four of us. Fortunately we all enjoyed the camping trip so we hope to do a couple of more trips this fall to decrease the "cost per use". Let us know if you are interesting in camping with us or if you have suggestions for good places to camp with kids.

Here is Chris firing up the grill.
The kids liked sitting in these chairs. They also enjoyed closing them up and moving them around.

Wesley and Hunter were very into the idea of roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores. Hunter didn't like the roasted marshmallows Friday night but he was happy to roast more on Saturday although he didn't eat them. Wesley liked the s'mores better the second night but he also liked eating just plain marshmallows. I think he had a total of seven or eight marshmallows that night, some roasted and some straight out of the bag. Both nights, Lydia was already in bed and missed the whole thing.

I found the air mattress and sleeping bag very comfortable and I slept well. I woke up a little after seven Saturday morning. Wesley must have heard me to talking to Chris. He woke up and looked around with the biggest, sweetest smile on his face. I wish had captured that moment with my camera.

Here is one of the few photos I got of Gregory and Jack who was still partially asleep.

On Saturday, we "hiked" a half-mile trail to the falls. The boys were very enthusiastic about the hike. The falls were a just a little trickle of water but the area was very pretty.

Wesley really enjoyed looking at the falls. You can see his back in this photo of the Wrights (minus Hunter).

After lunch, Michelle and I had to shower the kids before their nap. (I will be doing another post on the dirt and how much the children loved being covered in it.) Once the kids were all napping, Michelle and I went for a walk. This was great exercise because on the way back, it was up hill all the way. We walked a mile down to the camp check-in area and then walked back up and walked through a few of the camping circles. My calf muscles are sore tonight.

When we returned from our walk, we found both of our husbands sleeping. Chris and Mark both had their heads back snoozing but Chris woke up when I got my camera out of the van.

After naptime, Michelle and I took the kids to the playground while Mark and Chris started on dinner. This very nice playground is right beside of the lake and beach area.

The kids also liked playing on the more natural-looking climbing equipment. Once Lydia got herself up there with Wesley, I got her down because I was a little afraid of her busting her head open or something else horrible. I knew Wesley would be okay up there; it wasn't that high.

We had a wonderful weekend. It was fun to getaway and spend time outside as a family with great friends. One of the best parts of the weekend for Michelle and me was that we did no cooking or cleaning. Our husbands do cook and clean some at home but this weekend they did it all!

Here is Chris making breakfast on Saturday morning which he often does on the weekend. We had "beach eggs". They were very yummy. Chris cooked five meals while we were camping.

Here is Mark washing breakfast dishes.