Last October, a new family moved into our ward. Even better, this new family moved onto our street! Like us, they have five kids, though their oldest is only 8. Our kids get along splendidly and love to play together at every possible opportunity. Even better, the parents are pretty spectacular as well.
One afternoon while the kids were playing, Julie and I were chatting about going camping together. It was the week Aubree went to California for Girl's Camp (more on that later), and my schedule was unusually empty. I asked, "How about camping this Thursday?" They were up for the spontaneous adventure!
We found a campground with two adjoining campsites that was only 15 minutes from our homes. This allowed Julie and I to head out early Thursday afternoon to set up camp with the kids, then our husbands joined us when they got off work that evening.
Setting up with eight kids (and no Aubree around to help) wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but nor was it as hard as I expected. It helped that we got a new pop-up tent this spring, which was 12,384 times easy to set up than our old, broken tent.
The campground was in a gorgeous location. Bryce and Emerie spent most of their time climbing around this tree, making up games and challenges.
There was no shortage of activities to keep the kids busy. Slug hunting was a favorite pastime.
Nellie spent hours scooping rocks into small containers.
When Mark arrived, the activity of choice became monkey-in-the-middle frisbee. The kids weren't interested in switching places with the frisbee throwers, they just wanted to be the ones to disrupt the flight path.
We kept dinner super simple; I brought rolls and croissants for sandwiches ("Suncadia Sandwiches" as they've been dubbed), chips, fruit, and vegetables. It was easy, tasty, and well-received.
The kids were excited to help build the fire.
We had a whole crew of pyromaniacs. They were rewarded for their efforts with much-anticipated and very messy s'mores.
The worst part about camping is trying to get little people to go to sleep. The boys did a pretty reasonable job, but Nellie? No way, Jose! She didn't crash until 10:45pm. She does not appreciate changes to her sleep location.
The next morning, however, she seemed reasonably chipper. Julie's family provided breakfast, and my kids ate their body weights in Costco muffins. Before breaking camp, we decided to take a small hike down to the White River. It was chilly, so we didn't pack swim clothes or water shoes. As we prepared to leave, Nellie and Graham kept baby Eli entertained with games of Peek-a-Boo.
Three-year old Brielle had not slept well the previous night and woke up extra grouchy. She did not want to go on the hike she insisted... unless Graham carried her. Graham, ever easy-going and eager to please, smiled, and slipped the pack on his back.
As we made our way to the river, the weather warmed up quickly.
The river was super rocky and difficult to access, but once we found a good area, the kids had a blast playing around the water.
As often happens, all too soon playing around the water became playing in the water.
Some fell in accidentally, some not so accidentally.
When we got back to camp, the kids went right back to playing while the adults cleaned up camp. Julie and I were grateful we didn't have to clean up by ourselves as well!
Camping for just one night is a ton of work, but we had such a blast with our friends and neighbors that it was definitely worth it.
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