Camping on July 1 to July 3

First camping trip this year and Kara's first camping trip too. We borrowed the Elswoods tent trailer as I didn't want to have to sleep in a tent with Kara. To pull the trailer we borrowed my parents’ truck. Well we picked up the truck and trailer on Sunday evening, but my dad forgot to tell Matt not to roll down the window as it is very hard to get back up. We found this out after having rolled down the window and on our way home from picking up the trailer at 10:00pm. Well I spent 45 minutes fidgeting with the controller in order to get it up. Mind you I said a pray after 40 minutes and it went up 5 minutes later. Very nice start.

Monday, July 1st we packed up everything, well Matt packed up everything and I took care of Kara and me. On our way,  we went about a mile from the house, we had to stop and fix the tarp. 4 more miles we had to stop again and fix the load in the truck because the tarp had a hole. On the way up the canyon, the air conditioning stopped working in the truck and would only blow hot air. Mind you, we couldn't open the windows cause who would know if we would ever get them up again. Hot and stuck in a car is not my idea of fun especially with Kara and worrying about her getting hot.

Well we got camp set up...well Matt set up camp mostly while I fed Kara in the shade, but I did help pop up the tent trailer.

Kara hanging out while we set up camp. 

After we got all done setting up, my mom, Kali and Leili for an evening of visiting and dinner. We visited for a while and once it cooled off we went for a walk. Time went by so fast, we didn't even start getting dinner ready until 6:30 about the time Shawn arrived to join us. 

Kali, Leili, my mom, and Kara

What do you do with a 9 month old while camping... Give them a Slurpee Cup!

Kara found her thumb!

Kara fell asleep on her dad while out for a walk before dinner. 

We had hobo dinners with ground turkey, hash brown potatoes (already cleaned, cut, and ready to cook!), carrots, and cream of mushroom soup. Matt worked the fire while I made the dinners. We enjoyed a relaxing night of eating good food and chatting. After dinner, we had waffle cones with chocolate, strawberries, marshmallows, bananas (only Shawn and Matt had these) and wrapped them up in tin foil and put them in the fire to melt. Mighty tasty!!! But need to only put them for a minute to let the items melt. Kali and Shawn left quickly after dessert so Leili could be put to bed, which is 8pm, but they didn't leave until 8:45.

We cleaned up and sat around the fire trying to get Kara to sleep who was over tired from not having any naps since 1pm when we left to come up camping. Matt finally got her to sleep by pinning her down. Cute itty bitty slept until 7am the next morning. What a fantastic night for her. My mom left at 11pm and we got to bed around midnight. Not the best sleep for me so after feeding Kara at 7am, having a snack of donuts, and a banana, we went back to sleep until 10:30am. 

Waking up from our 1st night of camping. Kara did great and is so cute!

 We got up for breakfast brunch. Matt cooked and I feed Kara, changed her, and changed my clothes for the day. We ate bacon, hash browns, and eggs. Yummy.

Kara waiting outside with her daddy while he makes breakfast.

Matt cooking breakfast.

Now we are sitting in a grove of trees, by the river, hanging out while Kara naps on my lap.

Kara hanging out by the river. She loves nature and had so much fun looking around. 

Camping continued…

The flies got really bad while we were down by the river so we moved, which woke Kara up. So we decided to hike around the camp. It put Kara to sleep for awhile longer, I got my 5,000 steps in for the day, and it passed the time until we ate dinner.

Family photo out on our hike around camp. 

We had dinner with Matt’s parents that night. We ate Chicken Tacos. It was really easy because we prepped the chicken before we left for camping. Thank you crock pot. I think it is the best invention as I hate cooking! So chicken tacos and watermelon were for dinner. We also had some smores for dessert. It was a little hot for a fire, but the smores tastes good. Matt’s parents left around 8:30 or 9:00. 

Matt's dad having a snooze before dinner

Kara and her grandma...who isn't fond of camping,
(but loves us so much we will be going this summer sometime)

Kara wearing my sunglasses. 

 We cleaned up camp and went to bed by 10:00pm. We were exhausted. Kara woke up that night once for a feeding than back to bed until 9:00am. We woke up had breakfast and packed up to come home so Matt could work out and get some rest before going to work that night.

Kara and Matt in front of the tent trailer.

Kara and me infront of the tent trailer

Kara sleeping on the table while we take down camp.
She woke up as soon as we were done though.

All I can say is it was good we came home earlier in the day. We had to drop off the tent trailer (Thanks Kristin and David!), go home unpack, take showers, put Kara to sleep, and clean up at home. While Matt went to work, I took the truck back to my parents, cleaned out the bed, and then went home and went to bed. Camping was exhausting, but a lot of fun. Two days was the perfect amount of time. I just wished the flies would have left us alone and it be a little cooler.