camping- major photo overload!

We have talked about going camping for ages. We went twice before we had Axton and then haven't been since. Axton loves the father/son campout every year and Greg said he does well so we decided to go. We tried to get Greg's siblings to go with us but the first week it just didn't work out. So we ended up going on July 1st with some friends, the Nield's for just Friday night, we all had to be to church on Sunday. They have 4 kiddos, one of which is only a month younger than Axton. They had a blast together. I though was a slacker and didn't take any pictures. We had so much fun, and I actually slept pretty good for being 34 weeks along, and so we decided to do it again the following weekend when we could stay the two nights.

This time we did take pictures and Greg's sister, Kim, and her family joined us for some of it. This time we got to stay in the campground which was much appreciated by me because trying to go to the bathroom in the wilderness, with sparse, little trees wasn't the easiest task the week before! Can't believe I didn't think about that before going!

This is the lake we stayed by. I can't wait to bring a canoe up so we can explore it more, but that won't be happening until next year.


Axton's favorite "dry" past time at the lake was throwing rocks in. The bigger the better. I finally had to start limiting the size afraid he would either drop it on himself or go over with it when he threw it.



They had some HUGE fish! Or not. The half a dozen we caught between the two weekends were all this size.



The best part about camping with Axton is that when it gets dark, he BEGS us to go to bed. The down side, as soon as the sun is up so is he! It makes perfect sense to him. So even though I slept half decent I was still really tired come 5:30am and the cousins were all still sleeping so Greg graciously got up with him and they went exploring for about 45 mins.




After breakfast we went back to the lake to swim. I forget how much I miss swimming,tubing/boating in lakes and rivers. I prefer it over a swimming pool any day, probably even over the ocean because of the nasty salt in the ocean. Axton loves it too, especially since with his tube or life jacket he can swim by himself to his heart's content. Greg of course had to find the highest rock and jump off of it, giving me a heart attack everytime (when did I become such a chicken, oh yeah when I had a child to think of)!



Axton and Brooklynn trying to warm up after swimming.


We decided to go see the dam after swimming. It was a bit of a walk but not too bad. Here are the requested prego photos, enjoy me in all my huge glory!





After naps we went to explore a creek that the kids could play in, however we got hit by a storm. I wish I remembered how to make our videos smaller because it was a pretty rad storm complete with hail! Needless to say the storm convinced Kim and them to go home because they had their 4 month old with them and were worried about their kids getting cold. So we stuck it out by ourselves Saturday night. It rained on and off the entire night. During one of the breaks from rain but not from thunder and lightning we went back to the lake and discovered that there were tons of small fires that had been started by the lightning. The pictures don't do it justice but it was awesome. There were tons of them, but luckily more rain followed so they were quickly put out.



Sunday we got up and decided to just go home, so by 7am we were out of there. While driving home though Greg saw a sign for a state park boasting about a natural bridge so we decided to take a small detour and go see it. When we got out of our car we saw these lovely boars putting a show on for us!


We soon discovered that you had to hike down to see the bridge. So us in our "hiking" gear, aka sandals and pjs, decided what the heck. It was a very steep climb but only about 1/2 mile to it. The trip down was fine, coming back up, well Axton sat a few times to watch me catch up! And because the one hike wasn't enough we decided to go do another one, even steeper but shorter. Luckily it wasn't really hiking, it was more like stairs, and short. I would love to go back and do the other hikes when I'm not 35 weeks along.









Despite the rain it was a great weekend. No cleaning, no boredom or wandering what to do, and just a nice change of pace. I definitely think camping is in our future every summer, I forgot how much I really do like it.