Camping for Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend we packed up our house (literally) and went up to Woods Canyon Lake to camp in the wilderness with our friends. Let's be honest, I am not a camper and I don't think I ever will be. It's just not my thing. I do this for my husband and I gain huge wife points for my participation. This year I was definitely not interested in going since I have a crawler on my hands. If Max was a walker I could have mustered up a little enthusiasm, but that is not what I had. 

Friday started off a bit rough because I had a fire drill at work to deal with before we headed out of town. Then as we are driving I smelled gas. Andy thought it was a good idea to put the gas can in the car instead of off the back on the hitch because he ran out of room. Ugh! The smell was horrendous because it spilled in the car a little bit and I ended up with a headache. Finally, we get to our campsite and when I took Max out of the car I found out that he was soaked in pee as well as his car seat. He must have just sat in his seat the whole 2.5 hours peeing himself continuously for how wet he was. That started off the journey, so needless to say I was not super thrilled, but tried to turn it around.

We set up camp and Max was super thrilled with the tent. He thought it was soooo cool! His laughter over the tent made the whole camping thing so much better.

I bought a 10 foot pool at Wal-Mart so that Max could have a lot of space to play in with his toys. It worked well.

The pool worked great and gave this mommy some relief from holding him during the day. I did not hold him all day due to the dirt. The big man enjoyed putting rocks in his mouth and was trying to eat them. I fished out two rocks from his mouth, so that was not good. I also saw a lot of broken glass on the ground that I was not a fan of. The last thing I needed was for him to eat broken glass or rocks and end up in the ER. Even after that I still let him explore a little bit on the ground, but with a super close eye out for glass or for him eating rocks.

I didn't mind the dirt at all because Max liked playing in it and he did get a bath at night. We warmed up water and in the plastic tub he went. He thought this was great!

My favorite part of the weekend (and the part that made it all worth it) was seeing the big man giggle away as he played with Stella and Briggs on Sunday night. His laughter just melted my heart. He just loved playing with them. They played peek-a-boo and hide and seek. This was so beyond adorable that it put things into perspective for me. I stopped being miserable and focusing on how much I do not like camping and realized that we are making memories with Max. That made the weekend so much better, but too bad that didn't happen until Sunday night!

Monday morning we all packed up and headed back to the sweltering heat in Phoenix, unpacked and cleaned up. Even the dogs got a bath! Madison is not much of a camper and really seems unhappy camping, but Izzy seems to enjoy it. Either way, they both had their own chairs for around the campfire this time so they were not stealing peoples chairs.

The big man loved playing with glow sticks this weekend.

And of course there is always enjoyment with nap time...especially in a hammock.

Max had a great time this weekend. He laughed and giggled quite a bit. He loved all the dogs (there were 5 of them) and all the little kids (there were four other kids). He watched and observed most of the weekend. Overall the weekend started out rough, but ended on a great note. Obviously I would prefer cabining over camping, but if we go camping again I will try and have a better attitude because I know we are making memories with the big man.