365Project.2014 | Week 16a ... camping!

Porch renovations were put on hold as we embarked on family camping adventure #2. :) Let me say here and now that adding good friends to the mix jumps camping to an entirely new level of fun! :) 

102. Someday we'll be able to pull out in something less than six hours, but we're not quite there yet. ;) However, albeit later than anticipated, we were finally loaded up and ready to go a little after noon. :) 

Home sweet home! Setting up camp is SO much easier in the daylight when you're not fighting rain and wind! :) (It also helps to have done it before!) :) I am not a tent camper, but our pop-up camper works very well. It lets me stay organized and keeps us off the ground. :)

Adding a few more logs to our fire so that it'd still be warm when our friends arrived later in the evening. :)

 103. Relaxing. :) We did a lot of this!

The girls had fun swimming in the lake. That was when we were blissfully unaware of the 8' alligator inhabiting those same waters. !!!!

And the boys had fun fishing. :)

Then we all wandered over for fishing ... and reading ... and rug making ... and just plain relaxing.

Steve teaching Matthew how to fish ...

The only thing we caught that first day was a turtle. :)

Our crews ... well the middles anyway. Our friends' oldest two couldn't join us due to responsibilities called college classes and Matthew was riding a bike with a Daddy. :)

After some dry clothes and snacks, we headed back out for a hike.

Matthew tagged along with Mommy at the back most of the time ... but when his feet started dragging more than walking, I'd suggest that he race to catch up with Christina ... or Erick ... or whichever "big" kid happened to be just a little ways ahead of us. Worked like a charm! :) Probably helped that the big kids were always super sweet when he arrived ready to tuck his hand in theirs. ♥

104. Speaking of Matthew ... he got to celebrate his 4th birthday at camp! How fun is that!?!? :)

 Twins for the day! :)

Boating was the big event for Monday ... a paddle boat and two canoes for an hour. Fun times!

The lake wasn't real large, but the canoes definitely traversed it faster than the paddle boat. ;)

We discovered that Matthew LOVES Cheddar Chex Mix. He happily held the bag once it arrived on our boat and took advantage of Mommy's distraction to munch now and again. After a bit he told us that he wanted to "share what's left with the other people" ...

This is what was left. ;) LOL! :) We decided that that was his first birthday present. :)

 The kids found another turtle ...

 And returned it to the lake ...

And we had a birthday party in the evening ...

 Complete with good friends, hot dogs,

And sprinkles. The colored kind and the wet kind. :) Thankfully our friends had a table tent, so we just shifted over one site. :)

We enjoyed chatting around the fire most every evening ...

And Matthew's birthday celebration was topped off with sparklers! :)

105. Tuesday was a bit drippier than Monday, but most of the day it was clear enough to still enjoy trails and what not. Poinsett State Park has a very nice ranger station.

 I'll admit that the Moms let the Dads supervise the mountain biking!

After three days, they finally spotted the alligator!

And everyone was pretty excited to find a geocache! :)

However, that evening it absolutely poured. The skies just opened up and dumped. For over an hour. It. was. wet. Very. very. very. wet. BUT ... under cover of tents and awnings, both moms managed to get a hot supper ready, and then Matthew shared his new Planes DVD and we all hung out in our friends' (much larger!) camper for a movie night. Things actually dried up enough by dark that we were able to end our evening with another round of s'mores!

106. We woke up to 38 degrees. In the camper. A space heater has now been added to our list of camping supplies. ;) We bundled up, used Mommy's hairdryer to start thawing out, and gladly borrowed our friends' space heater while we packed things up.

And even with all of the pictures I took, I missed capturing the bike train. If they weren't eating or sleeping, the kids were either biking or playing ball. Mostly biking. They even found the "big dipper" ... a nicely formed valley about 8-10' deep on either side and in the woods just a very short distance from our campsites. They had a blast riding down one side and up the other. :)

We took a slightly more scenic route home, including a stop at this topiary garden ...

Complete with a letter box! :)

And then we were back to real life ... including school and work and birthday parties. 

But those pictures will have to wait for another day. :)