Hey, we camped!

I am not an overly enthusiastic camper. I can camp and I have camped and I do camp and I will camp, but I love my bed/indoor plumbing/internet too much to want to camp on a regular basis. That being said, when a group of friends put together a quick camping trip the Monday and Tuesday before the 4th of July, we were psyched to accept the invite to join them. 

(Until I saw the forecast of record high temperatures those days. Then I crossed my fingers someone would see the light and cancel the whole thing. Spoiler alert - no one did. Luckily it was a few degrees cooler up in the mountains!!)

We had a happy little stream next to us, with awesome logs made just for adventuring across and back. Will (via his shirt collar) was mostly accompanied by Chuck, whereas Clyde stayed close to Cameron and Andrew.

 I channeled my inner gymnast and - holding Jack! - balance beam-ed my way to a fun spot for the wee fellow to do some fishing.

 Altogether there were fourteen kids 10 and under, and they did a great job keeping themselves/each other entertained! This was some sort of group hike, complete with walking sticks :).

Andrew, Clyde, Lily, Will, Hallie.

 OH: I rode a four-wheeler for the first time! Shelly is one of those amazing people that I absolutely trust with my life, and this was my chance to prove that :). She took me out for a spin and encouraged me to try driving it back...

 so I did! Pretty sure we topped out at about 18 mph; I'm pretty hardcore.

 The boys LOVED the four wheelers, or 'jeeps' as Will referred to them. Luckily Dan, Shelly, and Troy were all superstars and made sure everyone got lots of rides:

 And the kids were also happy to just sit and pretend when there wasn't an adult driver readily available for an actual ride, haha.

 Jack and Brehner were crazy, as could be expected. For a while I thought sticking them up in the bed of the truck was a good solution; they happily marched around and were contained...

but then their mischievous sides came out (as if they were ever hidden), manifested in pirate faces and leaning over the side of the truck in an effort to give me a heart attack and an 'accidental' middle finger slip from my eighteen-month-old. Obviously going to have to watch that child...

 I watch this child because he likewise makes me laugh sooo hard:

  If you're going to balance a rock on your head, Will found a pretty great rock to use!

 We were in charge of dessert, so naturally I stayed out of the way and Chuck made two delicious fruit cobbler/cake dutch oven concoctions.

 And thanks to the magic of dry ice (if it's not really magic, please don't tell me) we had vanilla ice cream with it, mmmmm.

We headed to a sweet beach-y area alongside the lake to do some swimming before we headed home on Tuesday:

It was excellent, Shelly and I commandeered the light sabers (aka pool noodles) and ventured out while Chuck and Dan kept watch on the beach and the seven (!) little boys stayed somewhere in between.

Minus poor Clyde's ridiculous amount of mosquito bites (despite our vigilance with the bug spray) we had loads of fun. Annual event, anyone?