Camping

Preston and I used to go camping a few times every summer. But it has been about six years since the last time I slept in a tent because who wants to sleep in a tent with a baby? Not me. Last year I promised Preston that we would go camping this summer, and he called in that promise last weekend.

We went camping. With our 5-, 3- and 2-year olds. In a tent.

Are we brave? Or just crazy? Still not sure.

We decided to stay pretty close to home (just in case we needed to drive home at 2 a.m.) and booked a camp site at Tanner Flats campground in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The kids were beyond excited about the prospect of sleeping in a tent. We packed the SUV until we couldn't fit anything else it in, and headed out. We reached our campground and the kids jumped out of the car to survey our temporary home. It was the perfect camp site:
The campsite was nice and flat with a fire pit and a picnic table. It was far enough from the river (oops, I mean CREEK) that I wasn't worried about anybody falling in, but still close enough that we could hear it roaring (oops, I mean rushing) by. There were flush toilets nearby. It was nice and secluded, we felt like we were the only ones in the forest. We had to walk down this little path to get from our car to our campsite:

Preston started us a nice camp fire and put our tin foil dinners in to cook. Then we set up the tent. Well, actually, Preston set up the tent while the kids and I took a little hike around the campground to get them out of the way. Once the tent was up the kids all piled in and played in there for about half an hour while we finished up dinner. I was a little worried once or twice that the tent might get knocked over from the inside, but it held up pretty well:

We unwrapped and devoured our tin foil dinners, and then came the most important part of any camping experience.

Smores.

I. Love. Smores. Every once in a while I get an overwhelming need for some nice, sticky warm chocolate smoresy goodness. Sometimes it is January when this feeling comes over me. I have been known to roast a marshmallow (okay....several marshmallows) over a candle and have me some mid-winter smores (and despite what some of you think, making them in the microwave just isn't the same. The marshmallows MUST be roasted over some sort of flame). I am eternally grateful for whatever genius invented the smore. The smore has made my life infinitely more satisfying.

The kids quickly caught on to the brilliance of the smores concept and we pretty much demolished an entire box of graham crackers, nearly a whole bag of marshmallows and several Hersheys bars. It was AWESOME! After we gorged ourselves, we got ourselves ready for bed. The kids thought it was so much fun brushing their teeth outside. They unrolled their sleeping bags, got into their jammies, and they were absolutely in heaven:

Then, we told scary stories. I use the terms "scary" and "stories" both very loosely. Arden's tale had somewhat of a plot, but it was a little bit hard to follow. She had a lot of fun telling it though, with the absolutely mandatory flashlight shining under her face:

Then it was Daxton's turn. His scary story went something like this, "Once upon a time....dere was.....A TYRANN-SAURUS REX! AAAHHHHHH!" Then Dax, Arden and Cora would all SHRIEK and then giggle uncontrollably for a while. Then Dax would tell another classic tale: "Once upon a time....dere was......A BRACK-EE-SAURUS! AHHHHHHH!!!" More shrieks. More giggles. Soon it was Cora's turn. Her stories (and there were many) were similar to Daxton's, but a little different: "Once pon a time...dere was (and now she is whispering for added effect).....A SPIDA! AAAAAHHHH." This went on and on...there was a "DIN-SAUR!" a "MON-STA!" and even the return of "T-WEX! AAAAHHHHH!"

After we had had enough of scary stories, we read a normal bedtime story, said our prayers and declared it "sleepytime." The kids were still a little wound up from all the scariness and all the sugar, but Dax and Arden settled down after 20 or 30 minutes.

Not Cora.

She was having a great time. She would get out of her sleeping bag and climb all over everyone, and then laugh hysterically when Preston or I would shove her back into her bag and tell her to go to sleep. After a while of this, we tried ignoring her. We then got to listen to her say, "Dad. Dad! DAD! DAD!! DAAAAAAD!!!!" for about 15 minutes straight until Preston couldn't keep up the ignoring and told her to BE. QUIET. She was quiet for about 7 seconds before she started just talking to herself and singing random songs (which Dax would join into occasionally). After a while we decided the ignoring thing wasn't working either and went back to shoving her in her sleeping bag and asking (okay, demanding) that she go to sleep. Again, she thought it was hilarious. After who knows how long (I had taken off my watch), I grabbed her and put her in my sleeping bag with me. I knew that if she would just hold still for 30 seconds she would fall right to sleep, and soon she stopped squirming and dropped off. The rest of us were right behind her. Unfortunately, my sleeping bag was NOT made for two and I spend much of the night sandwiched between Cora on one side and my snuggly Dax on the other with no room to roll over, but we made it through until morning.

Morning in the canyon is COLD. We were glad we brought our jeans and our jackets, but our hands got pretty cold. Dax wanted a mid-morning cookie but couldn't figure out how to get it into his mouth without removing his hands from his pockets:We wanted to go on a hike, and had heard of a nice-easy 1.5 mile round-trip hike to a lake a little higher up the canyon. The only problem was...the road to the trail head was closed due to snow (on June 25th!). We went back down the canyon a little and found another trail head. Here is where we got our first look at the creek since I wouldn't let the kids anywhere near it at the campground, because I was scared to death of one of the kids falling in.

It wasn't as impressive here since we were farther up the canyon, but at our campground it was officially at flood levels, and it was RAGING. And we soon found out why. The trail was pretty much a small creek itself, and after a little bit of climbing we had to scramble over big snowdrifts:

The kids all had fun walking through the mud, but we turned around after the snow got too bad. It was still a pretty hike:

Since we were in the area, we decided to take the tram up to Snowbird. It was funny to see people putting on their ski boots in the parking lot while we walked by in our flip flops. The resort was pretty crowded, and we rode the tram up to the top with a lot of people excited to go skiing/boarding the last weekend in June. There was PLENTY of snow at the top, and the kids liked to watch the people skiing. The views were, of course, spectacular:

It was also pretty dang COLD up there. After a couple of minutes Dax was done and ready to get back into the tram.

We had to wait for the next tram to come up for 10 or 15 minutes, and then we headed back down. We were off back to camp to have some more essential camping experiences, which included roasting hot dogs over the fire and making dutch over cobbler. So yummy!

After our late lunch, we tried to get the two little kids would take a nap in the tent. No luck. We decided that we better get the kids back into their own beds that night, so we spent a little more time exploring and hiking around the campground. Then we packed everything up in the late afternoon and headed home. Here is what happened before we even got to the bottom of the canyon:

Little stinkers.

There hasn't been a day go by this week that the kids haven't begged to go camping. We were driving Arden to gymnastics on Monday, and Daxton said, "Mom, are we going camping?" I said, "No, we are going to gymnastics." Dax said, "After gymnastics, THEN we go camping." Cora squealed "WE GO CAMPING! WE ROSE MARS-MAWWOWS!" I pointed out that Dad wasn't with us, and who would make the fire for our mars-mawwows? Arden said that she had watched Preston make the campfire and she was pretty sure she could do it. I pointed out that we had taken the sleeping pads we had borrowed from grandma and grandpa back already, so we couldn't go. Arden rolled her eyes and pointed out that we could easily go get them again. I finally said that I refused to go camping without Preston and that since he had to work all week we couldn't go camping again for a while.

I am not sure how long I can hold them off. I am sure it won't be long until we are all in the tent again, listening to Cora singing random songs in the darkness.

At least our bellies will be full of smores.