Saturday, April 2, 2011

Spring Break Camping Trip

Last weekend we went camping with my family and had the best time!!  Several weeks before Spring Break Tori asked if we could go camping, because she had never been camping before.  I thought that would be a fun Spring Break activity, so I called my brother who is a wildlife biologist and outdoorsmen to see if we could plan a trip.  We tossed around the idea of renting a campsite at a nearby lake, but then settled on just camping on some of our land that Robert and my brothers deer hunt on.  So, the men had all these fun activities that they planned for the kids and the kids had a blast (us adults had a pretty fun time, too)!!!!!
We spent the night at my mom's house the night before we were to go camping.  Before bed that night Tori wrote this on a a little dry-erase board that my mom has.  Tori was so excited she could hardly sleep!!
Here's a picture of our campsite (it was really just an open field in my family's woods) 
Washing and cutting potatoes to cook

My oldest brother chopping wood.  He went to a lot of trouble to make the trip fun for all the kids.

The guys cooking the potatoes over the fire.

I love this picture!!  Carson is showing his little cousin, Natalie, a cricket that he caught.

Nothing like a hamburger cooked over an open fire!

Cousins looking for critters

Roasting some hot dogs
This is a pic of my whole family.  It's rare to get a picture with all four of my sweet family members in it.

After dinner we went on a nature walk down some of the trails in the woods.

This is Carson's older cousin, Wyatt, carrying him on his back.  These two boys are hilarious together!

Here's the crew, looking for cool things in nature.  My oldest brother made a neat experiment where he prepared several patches of dirt for viewing.  Then the next morning the kids went back down the trail and got to see if any wild animals had left any tracks.  They found rabbit, deer, etc.  My kids thought it was so cool!!

Here's a pic of the whole gang.  It's my mom and her three children (I have two older brothers) and then our families.  My oldest niece, Grace, brought a friend along, so she snapped this picture of all of us.

Once it got dark, the coats and blankets came out.  Everyone got on comfy clothes and we talked and laughed around the fire.

Sorry, this picture is out of order.  This was while we were waiting for supper to cook.
Of course, no camping trip is complete without making smores!!

Here's some of the guys enjoying their hot drinks and smores, talking about "manly" things.  ha,ha,ha!

The next morning the guys made pancakes, biscuits in a dutch oven, bacon, and sausage.  It was soooo good and the guys really enjoyed using all their outdoor skills on us!!

Plans have already been made for the next trip!  For this summer, we've booked a campsite at a nearby lake and have decided to make the "Deer Wood's Camp Trip" an annual Spring Break event!  Once we got back to my mom's house and were packing up to come back home, Tori told my oldest brother that it had been the best weekend of her life!!  :)  I would say it was a success!!