Camping... and All its Glory

So it seems that us and camping just do not mix well. It always seems to be a bit of a struggle for us... Let's start from the beginning.

We actually had plans to camp the previous weekend, but the weather was down right horrible with Tornado Warnings all over the place, so instead we ended up getting a babysitter for the night and having dinner with friends (which was pretty awesome!)

So after telling little June bug that she would have to wait yet another week to go camping was not a proud moment, but things happen and she understood pretty well. 

Friday, I had every packed and ready to go, except for the fire wood which we figured we would just pick up on our way out of town. We planned to leave by 1pm and pretty much be up to the camp site by 2pm, set up and have the afternoon to play. 

No. that plan did not happen.

It ended up taking us an hour just to find firewood. Turns out there is a shortage of wood because of all the snow/ice storms that happened a few months ago. Dan eventually found some! 

Then we drove up to our campsite and turns out that every campsite on Lake Lewisville was full. It really was our fault for not reserving a spot, and plus it was the first nice weekend of the season, so we can't be too mad at that, but we were pretty frustrated. We had been in the car for 2 hours trying to find a camp site that was open, and poor little June bug just kept saying "Will we ever go camping?!" The whole thing was dumb. 

Dan, once again saves the day, and found a camping ground actually relatively close to where we live, so we were happy about that. We go in and find ourselves a spot, thats even close to the little beach to swim in. After another long hour we were happy to have found a place to settle. 

Our friends met us up there a little bit after we got there and we all set up camp. 

Then we finally got to play!! It was a hot day, so we spent a while playing and splashing in the lake!

The kids were loving the water and scooping up the sand 

Range just hung out under the table and tried to stay cool. He isn't the greatest camping dog, he actually just goes into survival mode, until he can get home and sleep in his bed. 

The lake we were at was beautiful!

Dan being a floating duck

We realized it was getting pretty late and decided to get the kids out of the water, and get ready for dinner. 

Little June and Hennessey 

We are "Comfortable" campers, which means we bring as much comfort from home as we can. Air mattresses included. We have a 10 man tent, which is nice to fit all of us including two air mattresses and a pack n' play in the tent. June was having a blast jumping on them. 

The sunset was really pretty! 

After dinner we got all jammed up, had s'mores and sat around the fire. 

We all got the kids down to bed finally about 10pm. We knew it was going to be late, but we were camping and the girls were having fun. 

The little one's eventually fell asleep and it gave us adults some time to sit around the fire and just talk without any interruption. 

Around 12:30am we decided to call it a night. Owen started to stir a little so we went in our tent to be with them. He officially woke up in full out screams and thats when the real party began. 

I got him out of his pack n' play and laid with him on our air-mattress for a while, which June was on also, because she fell asleep telling ghost stories to Dan. So all 4 of us were sleeping on this air mattress. 

Owen wasn't having it. We knew going into camping that if anything did happen with Owen, I would take him home and June and Dan would spend the night. Thats what we did. I took Owen out about 1am and headed out of the camp site to go home. Well turns out this awesome camp site LOCKS THE GATE!! No one could come in or out! At first I just stared at it confused, trying to see if I could get around, or what... It just didn't seem safe to have us locked in, but it was. I called Dan, and at first he really didn't believe me, purely because of miscommunication and the fact that it was really late. 

I went back to the camp site, Dan hopped in the car and I took him to the entrance. He got out, looked around to see if there was anything we could do. Nope. Completely locked in. 

Owen had fallen asleep at this point, so we thought we might be able to transfer him to the tent.  He woke up immediately after we parked, and started crying the moment we got into the tent. I rocked with him a bit, but he really just wanted his own bed. So we headed back out to see if we could get out again. 

Once we got to the gate, Dan got out again and we even tried to unlock the lock. I don't know why we thought we could get the code... we were really tired! So eventually around 2am Dan went and woke up the camp owners... The guy was not to pleased and got mad at Dan telling him there are park rules and it closes at 10! Dan told him our son was sick, so then the guy felt bad and told us this "secret" way out. It was so bogus. 

Dan then walked back to the campsite about a quarter of a mile from the entrance in pure blackness, and I headed home. I finally got Owen settled and got myself to bed around 3am. 

Dan and June spent the night. 

The next morning I woke up about 7am and let Owen sleep until he woke up, which was about 8am. We got dressed, went and grabbed some donuts and headed back to our campsite. 

When we got there, Dan told me that around 5am the air mattress was completely sunk to the middle and him and June just kept rolling onto each other. So Dan slowly rolled himself off the air mattress and luckily found an extra sleeping bag on the ground that he crawled into. Hahaha I just pictured it in my head, and thought, wow what a good dad to stick it out! 

The rest of the morning/afternoon was really fun. We packed up and let the girls play for a while. The Anderson's brought a kite and the girls were loving it! 

While we packed up the kiddos stayed content and played around and inside the tents. 

We loaded up and got home around 1pm. We were all pretty tired. I got the kids bathed and Owen down for a nap while Dan unloaded the car. June watched a movie, and Dan and I crashed pretty hard. We all slept until about 4:45. 

Later that night Dan went to  "Avengers" with some friends while I got to soak in a chick flick and popcorn. It was a good ending to a crazy night of camping. The kids also slept in the next morning which was an extra bonus. 

All in all June had a blast and she hasn't been able to stop talking about camping since we got home. It was a lot of work, with lots of frustration, but in the end we did have a good time, and I guess it's just another story to add to our camping experiences!