I'm probably going to make this sound bad...

but we really DID have fun despite it all.
We went on our first official camping trip this weekend. What a great way to start off the summer! I say first official, because yeah the kids and I went with my mom in April, but this time didn't include trailers with beds and satellite TV's and heaters. :) This was camping in tents, with snow on the ground and vault toilets and no water and outdoor cooking and marshmallows. Oh, and dirt. (and puke...but I'll get to that later) It was awesome.
I started to get a little nervous Thursday afternoon. We were supposed to leave the next morning after Jake got out of school and head up to meet our friends. I decided to go online just to make sure I had the directions right to the campground. Well, everywhere I looked--every website said the campgrounds didn't open until late JUNE. Uhhh...that could really suck. Since our friends were going up a day before us, I figured if there was anything wrong they would call and let us know. I waited all night for the phone to ring and it never did. *whew* We picked Jake up from school at 11:30 and off we went.
We got to the campground around 2:30 and were relieved to see it open and our friends tent trailer all set up and waiting. They'd gone off for the day so we headed down to the lake after setting up camp. Oh and I should mention a bit about the tent...First we love camping. And we have a lot of camping gear. Good camping gear. However, at this moment most of it is in a crate, on a boat, on it's way to Alaska. Yeah. (another story for another time) So we had to borrow Pete's mom and dad's tent. It's a nice big tent, but this thing is about 20 years old I'm sure. Anyway, his sister dropped it off at our house Thursday and said "it's funky." Yeah. I don't know what happened to that thing, but we rolled it out and it smelled like death. Funky was an understatement! We let it air out and went down to the lake.
See all the snow on the mountain above the lake? There was still quite a bit of snow all over.






After wondering around a bit, we ran into our friends who had returned from their day trip. It was back to camp to start dinner.
We ate so good on this trip. Way better than we ever eat at home! LOL! Friday night was rib-eye steaks and potatoes...YUM! All cooked over the fire too. :) My friend Erin and I are all about cooking outdoors and making good stuff while we're camping. I picked up a Pie Iron at the WalMart last week. This thing was so cool. We made apple pies and cinnamon rolls...you can do just about anything in this sucker! And they were goooood! If you camp or spend any time near a camp fire, you gotta get one of these.





Anyway, Friday night we sat around the campfire for a while and then hit the sack. It was pretty cold that night. I was so thankful I threw in our big Mexican blanket just in case. I think I might have died if I didn't have that thing! But Saturday night....Saturday night is when the S hit the fan. I thought it was cold Friday night...I was wrong. Saturday night was FREEZING. Literally. We woke up the next morning with ice on the trucks. It was the coldest I ever remember being while camping. (no wonder there is still snow on the ground!) The Mexican blanket was no use with the frigid temps. I lay there for at least 2 hours just shivering. I couldn't get warm and I could not sleep. I was miserable and to top it off I had to pee. I layed there forever trying to will it away, but it was no use. I finally got up. When I came back to the tent Megan was awake. I tried to cover her up some more, but I could hardly move besides the shivering of my entire body. She said "i don't feel good mommy". I told her to lay down and go back to sleep. She whimpered a little and then.......BLAHP. Uh huh. Throw up, all over her pillow and in the tent. Lovely. Out of my sleeping bag once again. I have to say though....Pete is awesome. He hates puke almost as much as I do, but he got up (in his underwear mind you) and cleaned it up, cleaned Megan up, got a bucket, and then made sure we were all bundled back up each time we had to get out of bed. It was a total of about 6 times of getting up, cleaning up, going potty etc... Finally she stopped and fell asleep and I just layed there shivering and prayed for the sun to come up so we could go home. Megan got right up the next morning and was so much better. She recovered quickly. But as we were cleaning up camp I could tell Jake was next. The poor kid didn't make it 15 minutes in the truck. :( He pretty much slept for 2 whole days after that. He's better now though.

Anyway, so yeah, the ending sucked big time, but the time leading up to it was great. I can't wait to go again!






*Two more days of Kindergarten!*