Family Camping

On Friday we went camping as a family for the first time in 2 years. The kids were SO excited to go! I think I spent almost as much time preparing for the trip and unpacking as we did actually being there, but it was very worth it.

We went to McKinney Falls, which is a state park just a few minutes from the airport near downtown Austin. I love that there is camping within 10 minutes of downtown. It took us about 45 minutes to get there from our house. We didn't get there until about 6:00pm. Dallin and the boys set up the tents while I unloaded other stuff and made dinner. The main bummer for the kids was that there was a fire ban. So we could only have a propane cooking stove. I have to say though that I was a little glad we couldn't have a fire. It was humid and in the 90's, so we were plenty warm. We had hot dogs and hamburgers.Happy Camper!

A classic Zach scowl. Dallin took this picture, so I'm not even sure what he was mad about.

After dinner the kids played around with all the flashlights. Savannah was impatient waiting for her turn with the head light that we have, so she improvised. She stuck this flashlight in her headband.

Landon did great at night. We laid him down around 7:30 or 8:00 and he talked to himself for half an hour and fell asleep. He slept through all the noise and everything for the whole night. Connor was having so much fun and was wired. He kept Savannah awake until we came to bed around 10:30pm. Then we had some lovely neighbors (college type guys and girls) who were very, very loud. Once they finally quieted down after midnight or so a car pulled up in the spot next to us. Some people pulled out the brightest lamp ever and set up there whole camp until about 1:00am. Seriously. The light actually woke Landon up for a minute, but he fell right back to sleep. Needless to say, I got about 2 hours of sleep...but oh well.

We can't all fit very well in our big tent anymore, so the boys got the little tent all to themselves. They had a fun time chatting until late also.

I'm so glad we had the playpen to keep this little guy out of the bugs.

This is where Connor & Savanah spent the majority of their time...in the dirt. Here they are making a nest or something for the rolie polies.

After we packed everything up in the morning we headed over to the creek to do some fishing. Dallin helped Connor & Savannah fish for a few minutes and then took the big boys to a fishing hole farther away where I couldn't take the stroller. It worked out great.

This spot made me really nervous with Connor, since it dropped down like 10 or 15 feet to the water.

There were a lot of people fishing that day because they were having some kind of kid fishing program that morning. I don't think it's normally that crowded.

The little kids and I went back to the car to have some lunch. Landon was NOT a happy camper. He did NOT want to take a nap. Period. I finally strapped him to me in the baby carrier and we walked to a little museum nearby. He finally fell asleep after about 45 minutes of me carrying him.

I got a blanket out of the car and we walked until we found this nice shady spot on some soft grass. He took a good 30 minute nap until Dallin came and found us.

Then we headed home and got back about 1:30 or so. Dallin commented as we were unloading "Boy we brought a lot of stuff." It definitely does take a lot of stuff for 6 people and a baby. But it was a fun time overall and I'm excited that we'll probably get to do more camping as Landon gets older.