Anyhoo, my first mistake was telling the kids in advance that we were going camping on Friday. They asked all week if it was Friday yet. When it was finally Friday, the kids assumed that we were going to be camping right after breakfast. The sad truth was that Preston had to work all day and camping was oh-so-far-away from breakfast. We went to swimming lessons, but that only got us to 10:30 a.m. After that, I told them all they had to pack a little bag, which the rushed off to their rooms to do. I tried to drag it out as long as I could, but we were only going overnight so that got us to.....11:00 a.m. Needless to say, it was a VeRy LoNg afternoon.
Preston thankfully got off an hour or so early so we were on the road around 4. We went to a campground by Mantua, which cute small town is apparently pronounced "Man-a-way." I have no idea why. If you know why, leave me a comment, because it baffles me.
We found our cute little campsite next to a cute little stream. Preston, started a manly fire and I took the kids for a little walk while he cooked our manly hobo dinners and set up the tent in a manly way. While we were on our walk we stumbled across a little bit of heaven:
A whole meadow covered in bright vermilion poppies. I made the kids run out in the meadow so I could take their pictures. Arden and Dax are doing their cute "cheese!" pictures, but Cora is throwing out her killer supermodel pose. Um...this is not exactly the runway, sweetie. Try again!
Ah, that is better!
After the hike, we ate our tin foil dinners, which are always a favorite with my carnivorous kids since they are mostly made of meat. Sure, they will eat some of the potatoes and carrots that we shove in there, but they are mainly in there for the protein. I am only in there so that I can get through the dinner part and on to the more important stuff. You know what I am talking about.
Smores.
After the smores, we told scary stories. Arden was so excited about the scary stories that she wrote hers down, with illustrations. I saved them and I was going to scan them in and post them up here, but I seem to have lost them somewhere. There was a story about a ghost and a story about a bear, and both of the stories ended with Dax and Cora getting eaten by the bear or the ghost. They. Were. Awesome.
We told lots of stories and sang some songs and stayed up so late we could show the kids the big dipper. We eventually piled into the tent, and snuggled down in our sleeping bags. Right after we got all snuggled Arden announced she had to take a trip to the bathroom. Preston was a little slow and wasn't quite in his bag yet, so he was elected to escort her over the stream and through the woods to the bathroom. I told Cora and Dax that we didn't have to wait for them to get back to go to sleep. Amazingly, they listened and both of them (even CORA) didn't say another word and quickly skipped off to dreamland. I was STUNNED! Happy, but stunned. I told Preston and Arden to shhhhhhhh! when they got back, terrified that they would wake up Cora and she would start her usual camping routine of keeping everyone up for an extra hour or two. She slept through it all. I happily plugged in my earplugs (Preston was too far away to kick if he started snoring) and was quickly sleeping too. Best night of sleep while camping ever!
The next morning we had breakfast, went on another little hike:
The kids were mad we only stayed one night. Dax said, "Next time, make sure we can stay at least five nights!" Um...sorry dude. Mom needs a shower.
Hopefully I can find my camera before the next camping trip.
2 comments:
You are killing me with that field of dreamy poppies!!!!!!
You were lucky to be there at poppy time!
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