Kickoff of the Camping Season

This was the picture of our camping on Friday night...with the grill a smokin' sitting on the picnic table. Albeit was wet, rainy and a tad bit on the chilly side, it was good for all of us to getaway for a couple of days! Some quality family time well spent, I say!

On Friday, we got there and it was raining and cold! So, we had to spend time inside the camper! Now that the boys are getting bigger, it's getting a bit cramped when we are all in there! But the minute it slacked off, the boys were outside riding their bikes, playing in mud puddles, riding scooters, just being little boys. My Matthew went through 3 sets of clothes in a period of 2 hours...he got soaked head to toe in mud twice. Oh well, that's what little boys do!

Friday night, my husband was spending time visiting with his brother while we all got ready for bed. By the time he joined us in the camper, he had to jockey for his position in bed and for his pillow with so many growing boys finding places to sleep in the camper! You snooze you lose, buddy!

On Saturday, both Ija and Matthew caught their limit of trout in the morning. Randy said that James is way too active to be a fisherman, at least right now at this stage in his life! So, the fish that our two older boys caught fed us Saturday night! Way to go, boys!

After they were done fishing, we went target shooting with pellet guns and bows and arrows, hiking, feeding the fish, playing on the playground to appease the baby...a typical boy's fun day filled with lots of activity!

Saturday night, all 4 campers in our group gathered at one campground and had a group supper! It was fun with all the chatting, visiting and eating!

Also, the 3 older boys spent the night Saturday night in Uncle Dave's camper which is bigger than ours! That was a good thing since I had a sick baby on my hands who was throwing up all over me and himself all throughout the night! I think he caught what his older brother had a couple of days before the campout! He threw up a total of 8 times throughout the night...I did not get a whole lot of sleep that night! But Randy and I learned that we need to bring our smaller tent for the older boys to sleep in because our camper is not getting any bigger but our boys are growing bigger and bigger.

Sunday morning, we got up, ate a pancake breakfast and packed up all the gear! The boys were disappointed that we were leaving already to go home!

Needless to say, I've had a lot of laundry to do...with a baby being sick, and the mud from a rainy weekend and also for being gone for 3 days. I usually do 2 or 3 loads of laundry a day just to keep caught up with it, so being gone does me absolutely no good in keeping up with my laundry.

And this last picture just shows ya that you gotta not be afraid of mud or dirt while camping! These are my dirty covered toes that I took a picture of!

But I gotta say, camping is good for the soul! Thank you Lord for the opportunity to draw my family closer together during these times!