Camping Out

Camping is one of my fondest memories as a child. I can remember the smell of the tent, the bug spray and the camp fire, all of it. I love camping and have tried to instill that love in my children. All of the kids have been camping and we started taking them when they were only a few months old. So far all of them have loved it just as much as I do, which is great since I plan on doing lots of it this summer!!! :) Anyways, Luke is the most excited about camping so when Nate told him there was a "Fathers and sons" camp out for last weekend he was ecstatic!! He has a friend a church that he absolutely loves and was even more excited that he was getting to go with him.
Then mother nature stepped in... Believe it or not, but there was a TORNADO warning for the area they were going to go camping in. And several severe thunderstorm warnings for all the surrounding areas. People were told to go into their basements if they had them and park cars in garages because golf ball sized hail was already being reported. We couldn't get a hold of any of the leaders in charge so decided it was safer to just stay home. Luke was devastated and broke down crying. However I told him that I had already planned a party for the girls and me and that he and dad were welcome to stay for it. In fact, I told him, we can even set up the tent inside and camp out here!! He stopped crying, but I don't think Nate was so keen on setting up the tent inside. But being the good husband that he is, he humored me and went to making Luke a little less sad.

After the tent was set up, we ate dinner and then headed to the store, in the POURING rain, and got some treats for our "camp out". I let them each pick out what they wanted. Luke picked snicker doodles, Lily picked out fudge covered graham crackers, Nate picked out chewy chips a hoy and Gabs and I picked Red Velvet cake (on Oriana's recommendation :) Thanks Rana!!). The plan before the men joined us, was to make the cake together, paint nails and watch a princess movie, but with our new additions, we changed our plans a bit. We didn't make the cake until the next day, but all piled into the tent to watch "Race to Witch Mountain".

(I was trying to get a shot of all of us in there using the reflection for the tv, it kinda worked..)

The spoils

After the movie ended we got them all ready for bed and then Nate and I escaped into our room. (After all it was only 9 o'clock!!) Lily ended up having to go upstairs into her own bed because she kept bugging the kids!! They all woke up with the sun, yes there was SUN in the morning!! Luke was upset and told us "see we could have gone!!" then we reminded him of all the thunder and lightning from the night before.

(This is them in the morning watching cartoons)

They had a really fun time and we made french toast for breakfast as another special treat. It was so fun to see them get so excited for camping and it makes me even more excited to take them to some of my favorite places camping when we are in Utah this summer!!

(On Sunday we found out that the campsite barely got sprinkled on even though all the way up until the turn off people we getting hailed on. I didn't tell Luke this.)