Camping

We really enjoy camping and try to make it happen at least once a year. This year's trip was fun and different because we got to go with new company and we stayed for two nights instead of one. For all of the stuff that you have to pack up and remember to bring, I think two nights makes it a little more worth it! 

I wish I got a picture of our load in the car, but  honestly at one point when we were packing I turned to Jayce and said, "Jayce, I feel like we are taking ev-ery-thing!!!" And somehow there were a couple of things I wished I had brought. Go figure.

One of my favorite things about camping is cooking yummy camp food. The two dinners were definitely my favorite, especially the tin foil dinners. Mmmm. We also experimented with cookies and biscuits in the sun oven for the first time and they turned out great.

Jayce used his BioLite stove for the first time. He has been eager to ever since Christmas. It just runs on twigs. You need a lot of twigs to keep it going and you need to be really attentive to add them before the fire dies out too much, but we thought it was fun to use.

And of course we had many fires. This one was on our last night and David and Jayce were experimenting with a different wood set up. It worked!

There was a lot of hanging out, a couple of short hikes, and a few activities.

We did fun things and came up with different activities to occupy us and keep the kids happy, but there was a good 4 hour chunk on the second day when it was really hot and no great way to escape from it. The boys were too wound up to take a nap, so Jayce took them for a drive to get them to fall asleep. I tried to go take a nap in the tent because I was feeling wasted and that was a no-go. I came back out to sit in the (hot) shade because I was worried I might pass out from the heat in the tent with no one knowing. It was an oven in there! I was having an internal argument with myself about whether or not two nights really was worth it when I looked up and saw this:

Ahhh...I could go through a little more heat for that.

Overall the boys really had a great time too. I was worried that I would need to think of new ways to entertain them every twenty minutes, but they just dug right in to the environment. Literally. Jack was constantly wondering off to do this:

All three of the boys were filthy by the end of it. I feel like the pictures don't do it justice, but here is a close up we got of Jack. He looked like a chimney sweep with two bright blue eyes peeking through the soot.

Cameron was often caught lounging.

 And Ben really loved the s'mores, except for when his hands got too sticky.

And then there's Jack. I don't even know what to say.

Look at his hands!!! I'm a little mortified admitting to the world that I let him eat a s'more (and maybe a few other meals) with his hands that dirty. Gross. I'm already kind of in that three kid, "meh..whatever!" zone, but put me in a camping environment and I guess there's no telling what I'll allow. At least I bathed them as soon as we got home though, right? I must say it was the filthiest bath water they have ever produced.

Other activities we did included t-shirt bleaching, fire wood gathering, and noodle necklace making.

Okay, these turned out a lot cooler in my head. Another epic homemade Porter t-shirt experience I guess! They put sticks and leaves on them and then we sprayed them with bleach.

We also used a little kit my mom gave us to explode soda bottles with Mentos. Thanks Mom, it was great for camping!

First we did it the way it recommended on the packet, which was neat, but not exciting enough. Of course Jayce and David needed to think of new ways to do it to make it cooler. 

David with just the Mentos and the bottle cap:

Three Mentos at once:

Jayce being Jayce. :-)

The twins learned how to get in and out of their pack'n plays a week or two prior to the camping trip, but man they fine tuned it while we were camping! We learned there was really no point putting them into their pack'n plays until they had already fallen asleep. The second night we put them into our sleeping bags next to Cameron.

At one point by the fire we heard a familiar sound and realized they had got hold of my phone and were taking pictures with it. Half of my pictures in my photo library the next day looked like this:

 When we went into the tent for bed they looked like this:

:-) 

I'm glad they had some brotherly bonding time.

Until next summer!