Lake Ray Roberts 2009

Or is it Ray Roberts Lake??

Anyway, we did it!! We survived the first camping experience of our lives!!

While this post may contain more detail than you feel necessary, it will be the only memory I will have shortly, so I'm gonna put it down as I remember it!

A few weeks back, it was offered that a group from church would be going on a camping trip during Spring Break, from Sunday afternoon to Wednesday. Honestly, my first thought was, "who would want to spend their Spring Break doing THAT??!" Little did I know that it would be me!!

Scott signed us up with no discussion or mention of it to me so when I started getting emails regarding the trip, I laughed, thinking they didn't know we weren't really serious!! Well, Scott was serious so we discussed! In my head, I reasoned that maybe if we did this trip, then Scott would be able to take the boys in the future for a little dad/son time and a little alone mom time for me!!

So, the week before the big day, we had a meeting with our fellow campers to decide who would do what and how it would all work. We left the meeting thinking that we should try to put up our tent which had never been put together before!! That went fairly smoothly and we started to get excited about the trip. The boys were totally pumped and we all started looking forward to it.

I can honestly claim total and complete ignorance at this point. I had not thought about having to walk a distance to the bathroom or take a shower where a million other people had already showered. I really tried NOT to think about these things as I knew they could totally take any excitement I had away!! I just packed the best I could, hoping for the best.

Our fearless leaders were Colin and Kelly who are seasoned campers. They led the charge, encouraging us all the way and answering pretty much daily questions from me the week prior to the trip. They would prove invaluable in the process.

Finally Sunday comes and we load up after church and head north. Luke begins to feel sick with stomach issues. We didn't think a whole lot about it...fairly routine for him. Little did we know that this issue would not go away for the entire trip. Bummer for him!!

The drive was a little less than an hour but the boys asked almost continually "how much longer??" It's a good thing we weren't going far!! Finally, we arrived and pulled into campsite #115. My first impressions were MUCH better than my mind had imagined!!

There were a lot of trees and our campsite was much bigger than I had imagined in my mind. Here we are putting up the tent . . . and then a picture of our whole campsite.

Alex and Parker are ceremoniously hanging the lantern (which promptly broke the first time we tried to turn it on!!)
Here are Scott and Alex all bedded down for the absolutely, positively COLDEST night of our lives!! I'm not sure how cold the temperature got to that night, but we froze our booties off. Notice the nice afghans . . . not really the best choice for the coldest night, but we weren't expecting sub-zero temps!!

But thankfully, we survived and made it to breakfast the next morning. Here's Colin cooking our breakfast tacos. . . eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, cheese, salsa!! These guys don't mess around with their camp food!!

After breakfast, everyone kind of messed around, played a little frisbee and bocce ball, and did their own things. Lunch came and went and the kids were chomping at the bit to go fishing. While Luke looked like this up until this point . . .

. . . he managed to muster up some energy to do a little fishing.






I love this picture . . . Reese loved her some minnows!!

That night we went into Tioga for some dinner and came back for some s'mores. Here's Landry learning how to catch his marshmallow on fire so he could make himself a s'more!!

The next night was a little warmer and we all slept a lot better. We woke up to Colin's pancakes (with optional chocolate chips and/or Reese's pieces!) and bacon. Then it was time to hike. Luke still wasn't feeling himself so he stayed back with Julie and pretty much everyone else took off.









All in all, it was a great time! The kids had a blast playing with friends and even making some new ones!!

Finally, just a couple of funny pics - -

I think Landry really liked the idea of camping!!

And here's how Jackson feels about it

Just kidding . . . he'd just eaten a lemon!! I think Jackson is definitely going to be a good camper!!

Much thanks to Kelly and Colin for helping us navigate our first camping trip. We definitely couldn't have done it without you guys!