Why camping never works for us...

Camping is our friend. I grew up camping! Dan is a geologist! He once camped for 6 weeks! Our garage is full of camping gear. WE ARE CAMPERS! But... we have yet to make it through a night of camping as a married couple. Pit-a-ful! 

It starts here:

Camping story #1:  We weren't even married a year. Someone gave us a catalog, where they give you a certain amount of money and you order whatever you want from the catalog. We order a tent. It looked fun! 

We get the tent and decide to go camping. We don't even open it to look at it, we just pack up and go camping! Normal. We go up to Mesa Falls and start setting up. All excited we pull out our tent and set it up. We are looking at it, and it seems mighty small. Then LIGHT BULB... It's a little kids backyard campout tent. IT EVEN HAD "KID CAMPOUT" written on the outside that looked like a little kid had written it in crayon... WHAT THE!

We thought it would be ok. After eating, hiking and all that stuff, we head to our kid campout tent and try to go to sleep. It was so small that Dan couldn't even lay out straight, he slept diagonal and I am in a ball, in the corner. We literally could not breath. There wasn't enough oxygen! I open the door and a pour of fresh air comes in! We were gasping! But we couldn't sleep with the door wide open.... so we decide to go sleep in the car. Ya, that lasted an all of 10 minutes before we decided to throw everything in the car and head home. First attempt at camping: FAIL! 

Camping story #2:  We were living in Waco and Dan had come back from his 2 week field work, so we had even more camping gear and a proper tent. We decided to go camping. We drove up to Fair Field Lake. We pull into the camp sight and there is not a single person in sight, except for a weird scary looking lady who kept walking past our camp sight staring at us. We had Ranger by then, and brought him with us, and every time that lady walked by he would just give her this mean growl. It was a little creepy. 

     We do our thing, we build a fire, have dinner, play games, and explore. We were tired and ready to call it a night. Remember no one there, but crazy old lady. About a half hour later, we hear crunching in the leaves... It sounded exactly like foot steps right by our camp and tent. We tried shaking the tent and yelling to make it go away since we thought it was an animal and we were scaring it off. It wasn't scaring off. It was getting closer... 

       We were both a little freaked out, Range was growling like no other, and just would not calm down. So we go to the car and flash our lights right on our camp. Nothing is there. We honk the horn. Still hearing sounds. At this point, we thought we were going to be murdered, so Dan grabs his knife and starts packing up camp like a mad man. We took turns, grabbing something, then running back to the car. Dan would grab our bags, and anything he could carry. I would grab a cup and come bolting back to the car. I was so scared! Range was going ballistic at this point! We literally threw everything in the back of the car, just wanting to get out of there. 

     Once everything was packed up, we flash our lights one more time on our way out, and all of the sudden you see beady little eyes ALL OVER OUR CAMP! It was a HUGE family of armadillos! I guess they aren't scared of campers, and come into camp to eat the food. They were everywhere. I honestly have never seen so many armadillos! At that point we just laughed and headed home. 

Second attempt at camping: FAIL 

Camping Story #3: We went camping Friday. We thought to ourselves, Third times the charm. 

We planned about a month ago to go camping with some friends at Black Creek. The hubby's took time of work, and we all planned what we would bring, and share. Everything was set! This time we added June to the mix, but we all have little girls, so we were all super prepared! Dan and I discussed how nothing was going to stop us! With friends, we were bound and determined to make it through the night. 

     Dan and I were the first ones to make it up to the camp sight, so we picked a place where we could all pitch our tents and still have space for our little ones to roam around. 

Sickness struck! The Watson's started the trend when there poor little Emma came down with a bug, and there was no way they would bring her out in the woods, so they had to call it quits.. We missed them! We still had Us, and the Anderson's. Again we were going to make it through the night! 

Anderson's pull up and we all help unload, and get everything set up! We then let the little girls run around, and play in the dirt. We walked down to the lake and splashed around for a while! It seriously was so fun! 

June LOVES being outside! Every morning, the first thing she does, is go to her closet, grab her shoes, and walk to the back door. She just loves to explore and walk on different ground. Camping suited her. 

Some horses came through camp, and were nice enough to let us pet and even ride them.  June was mortified! 

Splashing in the water, and playing in the mud.

She wasn't to thrilled with the mud between her toes, she wanted to put her shoes on to splash, but I was a mean mom and didn't want to get her Tom's wet. 

How am I going to add another baby to this pile!?

All warm and cleaned up! Getting ready for dinner.

The pictures stop there. See how much fun we were having! 

While getting everything all set up a little earlier, Sean, was feeling a little sick... He said nothing to worry about. He's a Doctor, so we all believed whatever he said. I mean you just don't question a Doctor! 

As the day went on, So did the sickness. It took him down, and it took him down hard. He was so sick. We honestly didn't know what to do. He was self medicating himself, trying to do anything he could to break his fever, and stop throwing up. Being such a sweet guy, all he was concerned about was getting me sick because of being pregnant! 

      He finally just couldn't take it, and they decided it was best for them to head home. So he went and laid down in the car, and we helped Makenna pack up their camping stuff. They took off. 

We were left alone. That was ok though, NO matter what, we were going to make it through the night! We had dinner, played games, and tried to get June down. It was a bit of a battle, and I finally just let her stay up with us. We roasted some marsh-mellows and talked while we watched the fire. One of my favorite things about camping!! About 10:30 rolls around, and this line of cars just comes pouring into the camp sight. A big group of people came and parked right next to our camp sight... I mean come on people, give a little space! 

      They had all their car lights on, just being super loud and obnoxious, but we were sticking it out, and thought they would calm down. WRONG! They had the loudest generator I have ever heard, and it was right outside our tent. It was on the whole time. After about 45 minutes they got their camp set up, and started pumping the music! Super loud. I was going to go over there, but Dan hates when I do things like that, so I held my tongue. We knew at that point it was going to be a long night. There was no way June was going to go down with that much noise. We are camping for crying out loud. Enjoy the peace and quite of nature! ooo... it boiled my blood!

      Then the real party started... The marijuana came out. Yep, The dooby, the joint, the Mary Jane was filling the air. It was time to call it quits. There was no way I was going to keep June in the woods, with strange people getting high! 

    So we do what we do best, and loaded up our camp sight at 11:30 at night. Once again, we didn't make it.  Third attempt to camping: FAIL! 

You see. We try. We really love to camp and we definitely will try again, but it just seems we can't ever have just a calm night of camping. It was still fun though playing with June and enjoying the camp fire for a while. 

And that is why we have yet to make it camping!