camping camping camping - Part 2

Memorial Day Weekend. 4 days 3 nights in the lap of car camping luxury.

We needed to stay sort of close to home for Memorial Day so we could attend a wedding reception. After toiling long and hard with what to do and where to go we finally settled on exploring new ground in the Stansbury Mountains. Honestly, I barely even knew they were there and I was surprised to find there is even a national forest out there....not just desert. Most of the camping out there is first come first served but there was a big group site available online and we decided to snatch it up. We hoped to rope in a few friends to cover the cost and to share in the fun.

Well, it worked. The roping in other people. First we invited a few great friends to join us and we were SUPER excited when they could both come. THEN we found out Lainey's best friend from kindergarten and Spanish school was also going to the Stansbury mountains AND after a little discussion realized they were planning on camping in the exact same place as us. So, of course, we invited them along as well, and since they were also going to be camping with her brother's family and their 5 kids they would obviously be included to.

Oh - and Marie's sister was driving into town as well so she might as well stop in also. (oh - and a big shout out to her blog stalking boy friend - thanks for picking up the fire wood. Sorry we didn't have more time to get to know you/taunt you.)

Campsite max was 30 people. We ended up with 24. Twelve of those were kids. Oldest kid was 10. Ten of the kids were 5 and younger. It was serious mayhem. Enough mayhem to scare off said sister and boyfriend. Adios old people with kids.


We were camped in a beautiful canyon (south willow canyon if you care.) We were next to a fast and beautiful (and noisy) river. We kicked the night off with hot dogs, marshmallows and veggie foil dinners. Marie tried to make a sweet and sour tinfoil dinner and then tried to eat all of mine because mine tasted way better than hers. Cream of mushroom soup could make an old shoe in tinfoil taste good I think.

We accidentally stayed up until around 11 singing around the fire and having a ball. I'm not sure my kids have ever been up past 9. When we finally got in bed Lainey fell asleep mid sentence trying to get me to read her a story. "DAD, PLEASE, just read me one little......"

The next morning we decided to all go on a hike together. We've been working with Romney just a little on learning to ride a bike and he has gotten REALLY into wearing Lainey's elbow and knee pads. He pretty much wouldn't go anywhere all all weekend without them, including our hike. Here are a few of us setting off...notice Romney in battle gear.....AND holding hands with the wonderful little Jane. I consider it a direct answer to prayer that somehow my children LOVE to hike. They begged for more all weekend. After a few hours on the Desert Peak trail, those with the younger kids went on short "car rides" which were really just parental plots at forcing kids to sleep and for the most part it worked great. We also sent Marie home for wedding festivities and the older kids went off for another hike.

Once we were all back together it was MORE hot dogs. Everyone was totally exhausted (EXCEPT FOR LAINE - SUGGEST SHE IS TIRED AT YOUR OWN RISK.) We got the kids fed and knew that nothing then stood between us and BED, even though it was only 6. That is when it started. Here came the rain. It started innocently enough and wasn't TOO terrible but it was good encouragement to go to bed at least a little earlier.

I'm pretty sure it quit raining once we got in our tents and I'm also pretty sure it didn't rain all night. The next morning, however, it started up the minute someone got out of the tent. We were planning on staying through to Monday but most of our friends were heading out this morning. The rain was pretty consitent all morning so finally everyone just packed up wet tents, wet kids, and wet wipes to head out.

We really wanted to not leave but we weren't sure if we could survive all day in a tent hiding from the rain. Actually, I'm sure Marie and I would have been fine but I'm also sure we probably would have to kill one of the kids in order for everyone else to survive. I'm not sure which kid, it would all depend on how the day progressed. However, just to be safe, we decided to wait out the rain in Tooele and go bowling! Sometimes it is important to have an open definition of camping.

After bowling we were excited to see a break in the rain. We headed back to the mountains where Lainey really really really wanted to go on a hike with our book about flowers so we could look up all the names of all the flowers. (she SO gets this from her mother.) Here is a picture of us at the 2nd stop and after about 20 minutes of "hiking" (see our car in the background? yeah, that's the trail head.) On second thought, I'm not sure they like hiking. I think they like knowing we will give them a lot of candy if they will just keep walking. Oh - and they like looking flowers. On this hike we also saw marmots, deer, squirrels, motorcycles (Rom's fave), and a bald eagle. This was, of course, before it started to rain again.

The previous rain storm was pretty mild. Sure, some water got in our tent but it wasn't too bad. Mother Nature was not messing around, however, with storm number 2. This time she meant business. Luckily at this point it was just our family so it was a little easier to manage. When it started to hail really hard, Rom's favorite thing to do was hold a Doritos chip (a.k.a. thunder chip) under the dripping water of our sun shade until it was really soaked and then eat it up. Hmmm. What a delicious snack.

I don't think we have gone a full three nights before with our kids in a tent and we for sure have not camped in such bad weather with them. we were really excited about how well they did. I don't want to brag but they are stinkin' tough. As long as we are camping that is. As soon as we got home they cried for several days simply because they were so tired and could not control their emotions. Combine that with 2 different school programs and a crazy busy week and you have the perfect storm brewing for camp out number 3.......