Camping 2015

This past weekend we got out of the heat and did our annual camping weekend with our friends. We headed up to the rim on Thursday afternoon ahead of our friends to get a spot, plus Andy wanted to have two full days of camping...he talked me into it. We set up camp on Thursday night and Max was all excited with the tent. He thought it was pretty cool. He was bouncing on the air mattresses and just having a good time while we continued to get the campsite ready. Max went to bed pretty easily on the first night while Andy and I enjoyed some peace and quiet by the fire with a bottle of wine.

We woke on Friday morning, had breakfast and played a little while Andy was getting the fishing poles ready to take Max fishing for the first time.

Since our friends weren't up at the campsite yet, we took Max (and the dogs) to the lake. I was responsible for holding the dogs (which meant keeping Madison out of the water and scaring the fish away) while Andy was teaching Max how to fish. Andy got the pleasure of reeling in Max's first fishy.

Not long after fishing our friends started to arrive and Max got crazy in the dirt. He even put a fistful of dirt in his mouth. I asked him if he just ate dirt and he opened his mouth wide so I could see it was all black inside. I asked him if he wanted some juice to wash it down and he replied with a very simple "yup."

I managed to get this adorable picture of all the kids on the hammock eating their oranges.

I am glad my friend, Pinterest Amber, was camping with us because she brought plenty of activities for the kids. I searched on Pinterest too and had ideas, but my execution was poor...ok, my execution just never happened. On the other hand, Amber's execution was awesome! She had the kids make fruit loop necklaces on Saturday morning (and plenty of other activities all weekend). Max struggled getting the fruit loops on the string, so I helped him put his necklace together. He also never had fruit loops before, so this was a treat and he just kept eating the blue ones. Right now blue is his favorite color.

He did search for buggies with the other kids since Pinterest Amber brought them all magnifying glasses and a bug house. Max had fun with his magnifying glass.

Following the necklace making we took the kids to the lake for them all to experience fishing. When we arrived there was a huge Elk very close to us. It was pretty neat to see.

We climbed down the embankment with five kids ranging from 2 - 7 (crazy, I know) and got everyone setup to fish. I was in charge of taking pictures while the guys dealt with the fishing poles. The other ladies were dog sitting (aka relaxing) back at camp.

We caught the small pan fish (or sun fish, but I am no fish expert), but that's all we needed to do to show the kids and have them have a good time. I believe Andy caught 10 fish and the kids enjoyed seeing it. Ella caught her first fish and it was fun to see her excitement.

We went back to camp for lunch, nap time and plenty of giggles with the kids.

Max went for a walk with daddy in the woods and brought me back a bouquet of flowers. It was so cute to see him running up to me with a fist full of flowers yelling mommy, mommy. Just completely melted my heart.

Around 4pm it started to down pour and it continued this way for three hours. We got over two inches of rain in three hours. That is a lot of rain in AZ. Max and I spent the majority of the time in Andy's truck playing.

We then moved to the tent to get ready for bed and of course everything was wet...no bueno! I managed to make a bed for all of us with two sleeping bags and one pillow. It was rough, but we managed.

Sunday morning was a new day with everything wet and muddy from the rain and the kids played together while we all started to clean up the mess and pack to head back to the heat.

I am not a fan of camping, but it's so much more fun with a toddler. To see Max have a great time, play with other kids, and learn new things just put a huge smile on my face. I will actually look forward to camping again next summer.