Camping Success
Isaac and I had been talking about taking the girls camping for a while. While he had never slept in a tent before, my parents used to take me all the time when I was younger. I remember my dad taking me to this very campground to camp, fish, and hike every summer as a kid (until I got too old and thought camping was too dirty). We booked a site and decided to take a week off to spend with our girls.
Sunday morning, we woke up, loaded up the car, and headed for Pine Valley. The girls were so excited to go camping for the first time. Grace did crafts in the car, while Char got in her daily nap.
The drive wasn't too bad, and the girls were amazed when they saw cows grazing around our camp site. Of course, they wanted to pet them and scared them all away.
They went "exploring" (as Grace calls it) while Daddy set up our awesome new tent. He had to hurry, because there were some rain clouds moving in.
These little city girls were cracking us up when they just wanted to kick the dirt around and not get their hands dirty.
When the tent was finally in place, the sun came out, and we decided to take a little hike to admire all of the beautiful scenery around us.
We were able to see the Pine Valley Reservoir from our site, which was just stunning.
The girls had so much fun hiking down the trails. They ran, jumped, and danced all over the forest.
I even got Gracie to take a picture of Mommy and Daddy.
We came across a few chipmunks and squirrels, and this little guy hung out cleaning his tail, while the girls admired him.
Daddy found himself a walking stick, which, of course, meant that he also had to find his girls walking sticks.
We came across a lizard that Daddy tried catching. It was a pretty fast little guy, though, and scurried away quickly.
Charley was amazed by the "baby Christmas trees" and wanted to take pictures with each one.
We reached the creek, and Char was too afraid to go near it. She usually isn't afraid of anything, so we were pretty surprised.
Gracie was really brave and even skipped across the creek on rocks behind Isaac.
After watching Grace have all the fun, Charley was ready to jump in. Literally.
Daddy helped her across a fallen tree and dipped her little toes in the water.
After getting soaking wet, Daddy had to carry them both back to camp. It's clearly too difficult to hike in wet jeans.
Back at camp, we cooked some mac and cheese with hot dogs and brats over the fire. The girls loved watching and helped Daddy collect little branches to keep the fire hot.
We all sat down to eat and enjoyed each other's company at the picnic table.
Daddy made some orange cinnamon rolls for desert, and the girls had a blast doing some more "exploring" while we waited for them to cook.
They sat in their chairs, while Daddy iced up the cinnamon rolls, and it totally melted my heart to see them love on one another.
We enjoyed our dessert, and then Daddy took the girls on a run to the potty, while I cleaned up.
Afterwards, we decided to head down to the reservoir before the sun set completely.
It was so beautiful and peaceful out there. The fish were jumping like crazy, which had the girls giggling like crazy.
Little monkey climbed all over Daddy while we sat admiring the beauty of the forest.
We headed back to camp for the night and got our pajammies on. Isaac and I couldn't help but laugh at these girls who kept telling Daddy to "look at our bear butts"!
I brought their iPads for bed time, and we snuggled as it got dark.
Soon enough, we all passed out and couldn't wait for the next day to explore some more.
Our first night camping was a success, and we had so much fun with each other. It was nice to get away from the every day distractions of life and just be together.
