The Great Outdoors

Well, we made it! We really did. We went camping for 5 days and came back all in one piece, without too many problems. We had a great time just relaxing on the beach, as you can see from Maddie's picture!

I will admit, I was wrong. I was. I thought for sure setting up would be much more of a hassle than it was, but I was wrong. We ended up only having 2 mini-altercations about where to set up the tent, and I did end up winning in the end....only because someone left their dog's droppings at the site that Carmen wanted to set up shop. Lucky me, lucky me.

Our tent was busting at the seams with the amount of gear that I packed, the size of our air mattress, and Maddie's pack and play. We had about a 2x2 area where would could stand (if we stood at a 45 degree angle), and giving Madison her binky in the middle of the night proved to be more of a task than one would think. You see, I was elevated with our air mattress being so large, and then I was nervous that I would lose my balance and fall in with her...good thing I only had to find the binky 3 times or so.

On Monday we spent most of our time at the beach. Cole was not afraid of the sand at all, and Kendall had a blast in the water. Maddie and Claire stayed in their baby cabana, while the rest of the clan soaked up some rays. Tuesday it rained all day so we spent time moving Madison across the camp site to keep her dry and also played some Euchre. Carmen and I still aren't very good, but we had fun playing anyhow.

We had a lot of fun from playing in the rain, jumping waves, making pie-iron pizzas, taking Maddie for walks, and even drying the 4 slides on the playground with our fanny's. Yup that's right, I didn't have a big towel, so I used the next biggest thing....my rear. What was I supposed to do? I did what any good aunt would do...I went down all of the slides in my shorts to dry them off. Cole and Kendall coined the phrase "Shake your fanny," as I was attempting to get the extra water off of my shorts. They are too darn cute.

We had such a good time camping, I think we may make this a family tradition and try to get out camping again next year....we shall see. Take a look at some of Maddie's pictures. She really did have a goo time!