Memorial Day Camping

This past weekend we went camping! It's very convenient to live right next door to a huge National Park! 

It was a bit more stressful than our previous trip - it was Memorial Day weekend, I had 2 sessions in the days prior and Dad leaves for Vermont and then moves to NYC during the week next weekend. When we realized this was pretty much the only weekend we could go camping, we were scrambling to pull it together. 

With it being such a popular camping weekend, we actually went over a few days before we were set to camp to reserve our spot. The reservation campsites were long gone, so we grabbed our favorite "first come-first serve" spot on Friday morning. By Friday night, all of those sites were gone. Sure, we weren't technically camping until Sunday night but we had our spot!



After church and after Brody's nap, the Brewers headed over to meet Grandpa at the camp site. As an enthusiastic viewer of Naked and Afraid (not porn, I swear, and one of Autumn's favorite shows!) I really wanted to try my hand at starting the fire with flint. After about 10 minutes (and googling how to actually do it), success!! I totally had a Tom Hanks moment, "I have made FIRE!"



One of these days I want to show the boys how to make tin foil dinners, but with such a short window to plan, hamburgers and hot dogs it was! Nana joined us a little while later to drop off Jodi's boys for camping as well. 

 


Poor Brody had had a rough day. Both Autumn and Brody stayed home from church because they were tired and sick. I was at Ward Council when Adam texted me to tell me Brody had fallen and face planted off the toy chest in the family room. He's also getting his 4 last teeth for a while, has a cold, and was not a happy camper. Literally. Get it? Har har. So, he, Adam and Nana left for the night after dinner and as it started to get dark.


This year we brought along the bikes to the campgrounds. The sites have roads that make for great bike paths. Lots of other campers shared our enthusiasm for bike rides around the campgrounds.





If you remember last year's camping experience, it was a rough one for me. Getting sick and getting zero sleep during the night - every walk to the bathroom was filled with thoughts of "Is this the trip to the bathroom that the bear is going to eat me?" Being alone in the dark woods was a bit scary! Luckily however, this trip was great. I did wake up once at 3AM and tried to tell myself I could hold it, but at 4AM I gave in after hearing a few other campers in the bathroom. For some reason, that made me feel better. More people to confuse any bears, of which one of us to eat.

It was pretty chilly in the morning and a bunch of Rolling Thunder bikers left the campgrounds at about 6AM, but we were all up for breakfast shortly after 8AM. Eggs and bacon made for a yummy way to start the day!








It was another great camping trip! I had to pack up and head out early to make Autumn's 11AM swim lesson (and pick up Brody and Adam to join us!). We can't wait to go again this summer!

2 comments

  1. I'm jealous! I wanted to go camping this Memorial Day, but I knew it was going to be packed and I wouldn't have been able to go out to reserve a site until Saturday morning. I'm not too bummed though; I've already planned a 3 night/4 day trip to Hagerstown, MD that we'll be heading off to after school is out. It will be just me and my girls, so we'll see how that goes!

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  2. Your kids are so cute!! That picture of egg shells is especially beautiful, somehow. Glad it was better than last year. Sorry about B. :(

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