Camping Weekend Day 1

My friends Felicia and James had been asking us to go camping with them for some time now. So we decided to head out of town for cooler weather and take the kids camping for the very first time. It was an experience to say the least. We prepared for 2 days buying everything we needed and packing. And if anyone knows me... then you know I tend to overpack no matter where we are going. So I had tons of clothes for summer weather, for cold weather, I had jackets and sweaters, I have way too many pairs of socks and underwear for each person... and there are 5 of us. Jr was able to get it all to fit in one HUGE luggage... a luggage that took up half of the trunk! LOL But hey I wasn't going to have the convenience of going into the closet or the drawer to get a jacket or a sweater.

We woke up early in the morning... we were supposed to be on the road by 5am... but Jr turned off the alarm when it went off and we didn't wake up until 5:10am. Nothing new with us though right? So luckily Jr loaded the car up the night before so he woke the kids up and loaded them into the car while I got the last minute stuff packed and got myself ready. We went to Felicia's house and Jr and James finished loading the truck.


By 6:30am we were off... BUT not until I met my sister-in-law at her work to pick up my camera. Then had to gas up, buy ice, and get breakfast at McDonald's... because with 2 pregnant women and 5 kids... we were starting to get cranky already. So needless to say we actually got on the road by 8am.

But a trip with us is NEVER ever as easy as for regular people. Oh no... not us. We have to be abnormal. You know our motto, "It's always an adventure with us" and that morning delay proved to be no different.

And an hour into our drive our van broke down. I think the fact that we were going up hill and all the weight... we blew the motor. So we had to pull over at the next exit which happened to be a rest area (thank goodness!). We called AAA for tow and my brother-in-law Loyiel to come rescue us... because now we had to figure out how we were going to continue our trip without a car. Luckily Loyiel, who bails us out of practically all our troubles so this wasn't anything new, brought us their Kia and rode home with the tow truck and our van. So we were stuck at the rest area for 3 hours while waiting for everyone to arrive, load up the van, and then make sure everything was okay before continuing on. Boring for us... but the kids never knew the difference. They just played at the rest area like it was a pit stop along the way.










Then we were back on the road again just as the heat was starting to finally kick in which made us women very very happy! Happy Mamas makes for a happy trip!


And 3 hours at a rest stop makes for tired kiddos once we're back on the road! YES!


But very quickly the sunny sky turned mean and ugly... and downright scary!

It was insane the rain we had to drive through! I seriously was scared out of my mind. At one point we couldn't even see the truck in front of us anymore... let alone other cars or the lanes. And the thunder was CRAZY!

It passed after a bit of driving though and we made it to our campsite.

And then the guys got busy setting up the tent, while Felicia set up the toilet, and I made sandwiches. It was a great group effort.




And my girls tested out our beds...


After all was pretty much set the guys and Diego went looking for fire wood and started our campfire. Diego LOVED helping the guys find the wood. He felt so special out there hauling huge pieces and bring them back to our site. Meanwhile the rest of the kids explored the area.














After all that I ended up taking a loooong nap. I am still exhausted all the time so I laid down and when I woke up they were already cooking the hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner which we all enjoyed very much.






It got dark really quick so we all sat around the campfire with the kids. I swear they could sit there all day just staring at the flames. And Felicia bought something called Funk Flames. It's a box with 3 little packets in it... and you're supposed to throw the closed packets into the fire and the flames turn blue, green, and purple. Well she bought 2 boxes and either we're doing something wrong or they just don't work well because they sucked. We were so excited to see them but were disappointed in the very little color we saw.










So we decided to head off to sleep after our long day. All 9 of us in the one tent and we fit fine. We thought we'd get some great sleep. Boy were we wrong.

First, I just HAD to eat a fruit cup before I went to bed and everyone had already turned off all the lights and the fire. So I put my fruit cup on the side of the tent... and James had to tell me that bears are attracted to fruit and they're gonna come to our tent. So I told Jr to get up and put the fruit cup in the car. They laughed at me for like 10 minutes. Jerks. But Jr finally took it out of the tent so I'd shut up.

Then Felicia complained about the millions of crickets making a loud noise. It was so funny! And to think people actually buy CDs with nature sounds like that... how annoying!

After sleeping maybe an hour, Arielle woke up crying and couldn't/wouldn't go back to sleep! It was horrible. She cried and cried and cried. Then when we finally got a little break from her... she fell asleep in my arms... Felicia wakes up the whole tent screaming, "Guys wake up! Do you hear that? Wake up! They're close!" And we all sat up and hear a pack of coyotes howling and growling... and they were indeed very close to our campsite. I swear I couldn't go back to sleep for an hour after hearing that all night.

But by some miracle we slept through the night. We woke up and it was still pitch black. With the awful night we just wanted to wake up and start our day. But wait, what time was it? 2am?! You have got to be kidding me?! So instead of waking up we had to lay back down and go back to bed. But Arielle wasn't having none of that and decided to start round 2 of crying for a few hours before she finally passed out on top of my legs forcing me to sleep uncomfortably for the rest of the night for fear of the risk of waking her if I moved.

But we made it through the night. Somehow... we made it.