Camping Family

Last week we went on a little family camping trip to French Creek State Park, and it was all kinds of fun.  Milt got a new 2-room tent for Father's Day that he was very excited to try out, so there was even room for all of us.  This is the first year that Maddox and I got to join the rest of the family, and we survived!  Other than the fact that the sun comes up before 6 am and there are no black-out curtains for tents to make the kids sleep in, it was great!  Here is a run-down of our camping trip, each day at a time.

Day 1 - Get the car all packed up in time to leave right at 5, which turns into leaving at 7 pm, eating at Chick-fil-A on the way, and barely getting the tent up before pitch blackness hits.  Then the air mattress got a hole in it while we were getting it blown up, so I ran to Reading to buy a new one at Wal-mart while Milt put the kids to bed.  We neglected to take any photos of any of this excitement. 

DAY 2 - Maddox woke up at 5:50 am, because it was getting light outside.  I tried to bring him to our side of the tent (there's a lovely zip-up wall to separate rooms), but he was just too excitedly noisy to let anyone sleep, so we all got up and everyone looks SO well-rested in these photos!  Flashlights were the most popular toy of the trip, so we got very good at hiding them from Maddox and Kennedy during daylight hours.

As far as how did we all sleep? Well, Kennedy and Milt slept extremely well, like always. Maddox was a little confused why he was in his porta-crib just a few feet away from the girls in sleeping bags, and McKinley is the noisiest sleeper known to man, whether she is in a bed or a tent. In fact, during the night I heard her muttering, "No no no, put it back. Stay over...wait....why are you....I don't know...." To which I then heard Maddox reply, "HUH?" Poor Maddox was so confused! And I think I slept about 15 minutes total because of all the noises inside and outside of the tent. There are birds and animals and everything like crazy here, and I swear it sounds like you're camping in a rain forest (which, with the humidity might be close).

We then made baggie omelets and roamed around the campsite for awhile to let the kids explore for awhile that morning.  McKinley spent her time having us give her various nouns, verbs, adjectives, and more for her Mad Libs notebook (which continued for the entire trip), and Maddox and Kennedy LOVED looking at all the bugs they found.  McKinley even got a chance to take some pictures and so we let her take a picture of me and Milt sitting at the breakfast table gazing into each others eyes (doesn't everyone do that while eating breakfast outdoors?) 

By the afternoon we decided we were hot enough to go and use the French Creek swimming pool, which is amazingly huge and nice for being located in a national park!  It's also just beautiful, because it's located right next to the lake, so the views are amazing.  Plus, it was so hot that we really enjoyed just getting wet and playing in the water for most of the afternoon! 

We got a few good pictures of the kids at the pool.  Kennedy stole my glasses to try on, and Milt couldn't help take her cute picture of trying to look like "Mommy."  McKinley is our little fish and swam non-stop. And if you're wondering what Maddox is doing in his photo, he wasn't a huge fan of getting water in his ears and kept walking around trying to figure out what was going on in there!  But we did get a great photo of Maddox and Kennedy actually playing together and enjoying it!  We don't see that very often, especially for long enough to take a picture of it!

After swimming we went back to camp to get dinner ready, and we had some friends drive to meet us at the campsite to roast marshmallows with.  It was really fun and Milt and McKinley got to go fishing and everything.  It was great!  Next time we hope these friends will be able to come camping with us, because they are awesome and our kids love them. We didn't get any pictures while they were there (probably because Kennedy grabbed the hot end of her hot dog roasting stick when it wasn't cool yet, and we spent some wonderful time calming her down), but we did get some of pics of the kids around camp before dinner.  We got some pics of McKinley getting annoyed that we weren't answering her Mad Libs questions anymore, Kennedy having attitude (like usual), Maddox not liking the smell of my bug repellent, Kennedy and Maddox making rock stew, and McKinley enjoying her Mad Libs by the fire.

[If you're wondering why Maddox has a pan on his head in one of the pictures, we're not sure, but we do know he gets his brains from his Papa Ken.]

Day 3 - The second night I figured out that wearing headphones (even ones that weren't plugged into anything) really muted the sounds outside AND inside the tent, so I even managed to sleep a little!  Plus it didn't hurt that we were all so tired that everyone slept like the dead!  Although, the same birds started squawking again bright and early, and I was convinced that we accidentally were camping in a bird sanctuary...it was like there were a million birds (including woodpeckers) and they were all right above us.  But it was amazingly beautiful in the morning.  I took this photo first thing that morning, and it was so gorgeous everywhere.  I'm trying to make sure I don't take for granted how amazing it is to have so many trees everywhere!

After eating some of  Milt's fabulous pancakes, we decided to lounge around for a bit and then load up the car before it got too hot.  We had a lot of fun taking some "modeling poses" of photos of the kids (including some great ones of Maddox's dirty face), and even got a few family shots in our camping chairs!

We had a great time, and thanks to the three different kinds of bug sprays I put on my skin every hour or so, I only got two little bites!  Success!  Happy Summer Adventures to you all!