Camping Adventures

We went camping to Ensign Ranch with Jeni & Kevin and their kids and Marci. It would be an understatement to say we had fun. The kids were looking forward to this all summer. We had planned it back in March. My parents and Sara & Derek came out on Friday for the day. It was fun to have them and maybe next year they'll actually camp with us. :) We did lots. We rode bikes everywhere and called ourselves the Buttercream Gang (like the old school movie), we canoed, did the slip n' slide, rode horses, did the rope swing, did impromptu skits, swam in the river, played Mexican Train, ate lots of yummy food and got dirty.

Picture overload here!!! Thanks to Sara the photographer I had lots of pictures to choose from. It was hard to leave some out!

On Friday morning, we had the slip n' slide to ourselves. It was chilly, but we got used to the water. We went down the slide a lot and made trains galore. Kevin, Marci and I were the brave ones to go down the slide.

Lindsey and Hailey would sit in their little chairs and have cute conversations. My Mom brought back to school kits for the kids and so they had fun coloring in their little books.

We found a rope swing and the kids loved it. They went on it a million times.

Zane's face was killin' me in this picture. So serious!

We were loaded to the hilt! We had 4 bikes and a bike trailer on the hitch. Then the car was packed with kids squeezed in. Camping is a lot of work! So we make sure to go for 2 nights to make it worth it.

When Zane and Chelsea first saw each other Zane was giggling and it was so cute. Chelsea would stick her finger in his mouth and they had this baby conversation/interaction going on. It was pretty cute to watch.

Our Camp Home. Jeni and Kevin's tent is on the right, ours is straight ahead and Marci's tent is way in the back in the grove of trees that the kids found for her.

I was concerned I didn't bring enough clothes for Chelsea. The first 2 minutes we were there I changed her out of the romper she was wearing because of mosquitoes, then she ate watermelon and got sticky then fell on the ground. Thankfully, we made it through the weekend with enough clothes for her. :) We were laughing about it. She was all over the place though. She would climb on top of the tables and get into stuff. It was interesting! Thank goodness for the older kids that would entertain her or watch her so I could do stuff.

The kids were having fun in Jeni and Kevin's ginormous tent. I had tent envy. I wanted their big tent. haha!

Our tent, that I thought was big until I saw Jeni and Kevin's (ha), all neat and ready for sleepers. It didn't stay clean for long. The kids slept great at night. The first night I slept good and Kyle didn't. The second night I could not sleep and Kyle slept great. Gotta love camping!

Chelsea kept yelling for Kate and Kyle. She was trying hard to get to them.

I was trying to get a picture of our bicycle gang. It was fun to ride bikes everywhere and go exploring. We haven't brought our bikes before when we've come camping with Kyle's family (we just brought the kids' bikes) and I'm glad we did.

This picture of Preston cracks me up because first, he is wearing Kate's old pink water shoes, I didn't want to buy new ones. He didn't care. Secondly, he was stuck in the tube like this and couldn't get out. It was hilarious. He finally got the hang of how to go down and get out on his own. He is Mr. Independent.

Kate found a little frog in the slip n' slide water.

I love the picture of my Mom painting her nails while camping. I actually painted mine right before her. haha! Jeni and Kevin are in the background getting the grill ready for dinner. We had yummy food like BBQ bacon burgers, tri-tip and chicken shish kabobs, french toast, pancakes, grilled chicken BBQ wraps and croissant sandwiches.