Camping

Tristan got his first experience with the great outdoors this weekend. Chad has been begging and pleading to be able to go camping so I finally caved and said alright. If it were up to Chad, he would happily go camping for a week. Me, I'm more of an overnight camping girl... I hate not being able to shower! We went out to Payson Lake. It's a really nice campground, only about an hour away and has a really nice lake (hence the name). We left as soon as I got off work Friday morning (6:30am) and headed up there to be sure we'd get a good campsite. The campsite that we'd originally wanted was already taken when we got there (shucks) but we drove around and checked out some others and found a fantastic site. I won't share the number because we don't want everyone trying to take it! ;) But it's up a little hill to the picnic table and firepit and then up another little trail into the trees to where you can put up your tent. It was beautiful and had a lovely view of the lake through the trees. Once we got all set up I took a nap since I hadn't gone to sleep for the night yet and was pretty much exhausted. I basically slept through the only nice day of the trip! It was freezing most of the time. I guess that's what we get for going camping the first week of June. Jeff and Jen (Chad's brother and his wife) joined us Friday night. We had wonderful food, tinfoil dinners, dutch oven breakfasts, steaks grilled over the fire, s'mores (of course) and lots of other munchies. We played games which can be kind of difficult when the wind kicks up suddenly and tries to blow all the cards away. By the time it got dark on Saturday night it was so cold that we couldn't stay outside anymore even with the fire. So we all crammed into the back of Jeff's Ford Explorer and had a rousing game of Yahtzee (camping fav in this family). It was so cramped with all of us though that one game was about all we could handle so we went to bed fairly early. Tristan did pretty well. He was getting pretty frustrated by Sunday though because he wanted to be able to be down on the ground crawling around and since it's all dirty I just couldn't let him. He did enjoy taking a walk around the lake with us though. He was also mesmerized by the fire, I'll have to remember that on later trips!

Rocky decided she needed to be on the other side of Tristan's car seat with Kallie as we pulled into the campsite. She basically squashed Tristan so I had to pull him out to save him. She apparently thought his seat looked pretty comfy!

Trying to stay warm in our hoodies

So proud of himself cause he's standing up in his playpen. Look at those pretty blue eyes!

He was chewing on the paper towels so much I thought I would try it out too. :D

Hanging out in the tent in his warm jammies and chewing on his favorite toy... his shoe! Chad said I shouldn't bring those pj's because they're 18 months and he thought they would be way too big... guess again! As you can see, they fit quite well.

Tristan and his Daddy... the Mountain Men!

Cuddling under his blanket

The puppies waiting very impatiently to get in the truck to head home.