Good times camping.

The kids have been begging to go camping all summer.  Randy keeps going with his friends and Sean gets so upset that he can't go.  With only 2 weekends left of summer, we decided to take them.  It's not the bugs, peeing in the bushes, animals, dirt, cooking outside, sleeping in the cold, not sleeping at all, and smelling like campfire that turns me off from camping.  It's the 24 hours spent packing every possible thing you may need for any given scenario, then getting home a day later and spending another 24 hours cleaning everything that you own that kills me.  But how do you say no to these two adorable faces?  Looks like they're really roughing it so far.

Lately the only music the kids will listen to is Taylor Swift.  They sure have learned a lot about lame boyfriends.  There is one song on the cd just for Kate.  One night I went in her room and she was crying big alligator tears.  I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I just love being little.  I don't want to get bigger."  So sad.  That day she was asking when she would be a baby again and I was trying to explain to her that we don't get smaller, we just get bigger.  I must have shattered her little world.  This song says, "don't you ever grow up, just stay this little."   Kate was so excited Taylor wrote a song just for her.

We thought it would be a great idea to buy fishing poles and rent a canoe and go up by mirror lake.  Apparently so did half of Salt Lake.   It took us hours to find a spot that wasn't right next to someone else.  It was a good find though.  This is by Christmas Meadow.

Since we didn't actually camp by a lake, the kids played in the dirt with the paddles.

Randy and the kids checking out some deer droppings.  

One of the many "hikes" we went on.

Kate couldn't wait to break out her new lantern.

My two boys.  What would I do without this pair of trouble makers?

This is my favorite part of camping.  I love getting all snuggy in the tent.  I love eating and chit chatting before everyone falls asleep.  The kids had no intention of going to sleep.  They watched their movies for hours with their lanterns.  When they did fall asleep they slept like logs.  I was the only one who was woken up by the rednecks down the road that were drunk shooting guns.  On the one hand I figured there would be no animal encounters with all the gun fire, on the other, I couldn't sleep with the thought of a stray bullet finding its way to our campsite.  Well I finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning only to be woken up again by the rednecks cutting down trees with a chainsaw.  I thought they may need some fire wood.  About 10 trees later I realized it was just for fun.  Freakin losers.

Well, the next day was our big lake fishing trip.  BAD idea.  Don't ever take kids in a canoe with fishing poles.  I spent an hour yelling at Sean to sit down so he wouldn't tip the boat over.  Fishing was a bust.  Sean had his pole completely tangled in about 5 minutes.  Kate wouldn't let anyone use her pink pole and screamed she wanted to go back to the shore the whole time.  Randy yelled at me to keep the canoe from drifting into the shore.  There was nothing I could do with one paddle and a lot of wind that kept blowing us around.  I finally convinced everyone that although this sounded like a great idea, sometimes you just need to quit before it gets any worse.

It sure looks like a great day at the lake!  The kids loved going even if we did end on a sour note.  I'm going to give us an A for effort.  It was a LOT of effort.  Check that off my list.