Adventures in Camping

Randy and I are not real big on camping. In fact, as a family we have never gone camping! We've gone out to camp grounds and cooked hotdogs and smores, but then we always went home. So this year, for Fall Break, we decided to stock up on camping gear (we seriously had NOTHING), and take the kids camping.

We had a group of families that all went camping together, but our first day was just us and our friends Tyler and Amanda Vaclaw and kids. First thing we did was set up our tents.

Next priority, building the fire for hotdogs! I'll have to remember next time that when anyone felt like a snack, it was always hotdogs they were craving! We need to bring more hotdogs next time!

You can't go camping without them! And I packed a lot for lunch... just not for snacks all throughout the day! :) I'm not sure if this was round one or two for Randy, Avery and Austin!

There was a fun rock look-out point right by our campsite that the kids enjoyed playing at. This is almost the whole clan of kids for the first day. Jake is MIA, but we've got my four and the other three of the Vaclaws: Logan, MaryKate and Evie. Such great friends!!

And I had to grab a quick pic of the John kids on their first camping adventure!

This was a smart idea! We didn't want the kids going in and out of our tents, but they really wanted to play in them. Someone brought a kid size tent so they had something to go in and out of! The girls in pink: Ashton, Evie and Addison.

Everyone was helping out! During the day the weather was perfect, but the nights were cold!! We didn't want to have to worry about the fire ever going out! We sent the kids out lots to look for wood. Avery and MaryKate did a great job here!

Camping is great because the kids find their own things to do! Here they are exploring... I caught them right before they jumped the fence!

We also brought a few games... like Ladder Golf.

Here's Jake... working on some soccer skills!

And the big boys, Randy and Tyler, playing a little horse shoes.

It was so much fun camping with our friends! Our kids get along so well together and Randy and I always have some great laughs with Amanda and Tyler. Thanks to Amanda and Randy, we camped in style! Amanda grilled some great steaks for dinner and Randy cooked up some amazing skillet breakfast the next morning!

Like I said, at night is was super cold! We bought a couple of heavy duty sleeping bags and doubled up in some to keep warm. We also bought a tent warmer that helped out a ton! It still made me nervous to have it in the tent so I opened the top vents to keep the air flowing. Amanda ended up taking some of her kids into their minivan to stay warm because they didn't have a warmer in their tent. Maybe not for some people.... but for us, this was an adventure!!!