Camping - ish

Labor Day weekend we went camping with Amber&Dan and their good friends Chrissy&Doug. If I'm honest, we didn't actually camp. we went early in the morning and left after bedtimes, but we didn't sleep there. We decided there was just too much stuff we would have to buy to make camping happen, and I'm not totally into all the dirt and bugs involved with sleeping on the ground.

Anyway, we got out there and the kids immediately set out getting dirty. What was I thinking putting this kid in a white shirt?

Everyone else had been there for two days already, so the kids were anxious to show me their find :) Luckily it was secure inside a jar, but I have never seen a scorpion not in a zoo, so I wasn't getting very close.

*note* for some reason my pics won't resize...sorry they are so small!
After breakfast we headed to the little Nature Center that they had at the campgrounds. It was small but very interesting for everyone. They had a bunch of stuffed animals (is there another way to say real animals that have been stuffed?) There were displays of bugs, fossils, and other interesting finds from the area.

Have I mentioned how much I love living next to my sister? I love it. I'm grinning now just thinking about it. we run into each other in the stores, babysit each others kids, and are able to do so many fun activities together as families! Anyway, here we are expressing our joy :)

 

Alex loves being Uncle Alex so much also. I think here he is appeasing Teagen, who's strolled got commandeered by Olivia. 

 

 

And then after lunch was nap time...yes we did try to nap our three kids under three on a blanket in the middle of a busy campground. I don't remember actually thinking it would work, but these kids were dead tired, and really needed a rest time. Carter actually did sleep for a while, but the bigger kids mostly played. They loved laying with moms and big kids, sharing pillows and blankets, and crawling all over while we were just laughing at our attempt to do a community nap time.

 

Oh yes...someone else fell asleep too :) I almost forgot our success story!

The pictures don't do justice to the heat that weekend. We were in the middle of the desert, with very little shade, and it was HOT. After lunch we didn't feel like climbing the dunes, so we stayed by the RV hookups and had a water fight. It was the kind of water fight where we all wanted to get wet, so we just ran around laughing at everyone's clever strategies. I love the second picture where you can see both two-year-olds using their water guns for a team effort :) I remembered about halfway through the soaking that I should have brought more clothes for the grownups, not just the kids, but it didn't end up mattering because the heat dried me before it got dark.

I wish I had pictures of dinner. Amber found an awesome recipe for gourmet campfire quesadillas that included beans, mushrooms, corn, meat, cheese, peppers, lime, cilantro...yum yum yum. It was a perfect dinner, and makes me want to make a campfire just so we can eat them again. We pretty much just hung out and played for the evening, then made s'mores to top off our night before heading back home. Carter's first experience didn't disappoint, he was covered :). Both kids loved it of course, and they had a blast sitting around with their cousins, no bibs or mom telling them to stay in their chair, and mixing their food with sand and still eating it :). Camping is heaven for toddlers.