Camping Round 2

We went camping this past weekend again. Back to Deep Lake. It was hot, buggy, wet...



And AWESOME.

Camping is just always worth it for this family. The more we go, the better we get at it. And it's no secret that all my guys do best outside.

Saturday morning was uber soggy, but the forecast promised redemption. So we headed back to GR, ditched the dogs are Grandma & Grandpa's house (Thank you!) and went out for breakfast. It turned out to be the perfect length of time and Ben was delighted that we finally answered his request to "goseeGramma"




Ben showed sincere interest in wild life this trip. So after a lengthy but "successful" (just go with it) rescue of an injured and dying Cicada, we ran up the road to the general store for a little fish net.

"WOW"



I've been trying to come up with some sort of allergy free tradition we can have around the campfire. Keith's never been big on marshmallows and Ben can't eat any of the sweets I'm used to preparing, so I thought Jiffy Pop would be fun.

Clearly, Ben was no where to be found and couldn't have cared less about all the popping. And the stupid little handle is much too short for anyone but Super Daddy Teflon Fingers to hold.



BUT... a tradition is born.
(Complete with the cheese face. Seriously - who taught him that???)



A note on his attire. The campground we like so much is a total redneck farm. We embrace that. And Ben has had diarrea for a while (i've kept that off the blog 'til now - you're welcome) and um soiled enough pants for one day. So yeah. My kid ran around without pants. My husband refused to wear a shirt. I wore a sports bra under a spaghetti strap tank top. And we swam at the boat launch.

And? We were still the classiest people we met all weekend.
Ask me again why I love camping.

And although the process wasn't as interesting as I might have hoped, the kid does love popcorn.




The pack'n'play was the perfect place to:
A.) Keep stuff off the ground while packing up.
B.) Build a fort that kept Ben entertained the entire time we packed the car. Best clean up effort to date. It'll be a sad day when he grows out of that thing, but I'm afraid it's fast approaching. He did sleep great this trip. Super great. Greater than at home, actually. (We've joked about putting his crib in the tent in the backyard. And no, we aren't quite that redneck.... yet.)



After we put him to bed the first night, he called me back to the tent and very politely asked me to "lights off." Apparently that wasn't an issue on the ride home.