A Weekend of Camping + Hiking

I had this past weekend off work and it lined up perfectly with or plans! Last summer we weren't able to do many family excursions because I was always at work on the weekends. It was pretty frustrating, so this year I asked to have a few random weekends off work and it's been wonderful!

We had been wanting to take another camping trip with the kids and Grandma was wanting us to come out for an afternoon to meet a gentlemen she's been dating for a couple months named John. Perry and I decided we'd go camp, and meet up with them on Saturday. Getting ready for this trip out was a lot less stressful than when we went in June because everything was already together in our camping tote. I however forgot a few kitchen things...oops!

 After we drove around for a little bit, we settled on a site next to some others, and it worked our just fine. Once the tent was up, we spend about half an hour getting sticks and branches to make a fire. Hunter played in the river during this but JP was quite the help!

Ms. Gail also played in the river and was torqued that her dress got wet. It didn't help that going potty outside isn't one of her strong suits either...

In the morning after tossing and turning all night, we cooked up some scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. HD didn't eat much because his stomach hurt. We then headed to the cabin to meet John and head out with him and Grandma to hike to Morrell Falls. On the way up to the trail head, HD puked in the car. That was awesome...

 Once he threw up he felt much better and enjoyed running up and down the trail hitting things with his stick. Ms. Gail took the easy way up the mountain by riding on dad's shoulders. 

 She walked occasionally, but not for very long.

 On our way up, we stopped at this little opening for the kids to rest a bit. 

 John spotted a few huckleberries and picked a few for the kids to try. 

 Some hikers on their way back from the falls stopped and offered to take a group photo. Yay! All my kids are looking!

 

The falls was beautiful when we finally arrived! So calming to watch!

 Ahhhh.....

 [insert shameless selfie here] 

 On the way back down, JP found two caterpillars, who were later named Fred and Lucky, and carried them all the way back to Grandma's cabin. Ms. Gail attempted to carry one of her own home too, but later opted to put it in the mesh pocket of my backpack and ride on dad's shoulders again. 

She ended up falling asleep in his arms. Shortly thereafter, her caterpillar made its way out of the pocket and onto my hand where I jumped and flung it off before I realized it was her caterpillar. I told her that was going to happen!

 At the cabin, John grilled us mooseburgers for dinner and they were delicious! Before heading back to our campsite a few miles down the road, we had a cherry pit spitting contest and roasted marshmallows down by the river while HD looked for crawdads. At camp we wasted a little time playing on Snapchat. Hahaha!

This one kills me!  

 The next morning looked a little rough for the kids. When I left the tent they were all nestled in their bags, but by the time I came back Ms. Gail was just waking up.

 Poor JP hates mornings! Lol! 

 Again while we were packing up the tent, HD was down looking for more crawdads.

I went down to check on him right before he found "the biggest one I've ever seen" and he was so excited that he caught it! We spent the rest of the afternoon at home unpacking and cleaning out my car. By evening we started (and finished!) a 1000 piece puzzle, taking break to eat huckleberry pancakes for dinner! 

Camping at Grandma's House

On Friday, while Perry was working from home, I asked if we could set the tent up in the backyard for the boys to sleep in that night. We hadn't been camping yet this year, and I thought this would be fun for them. He responded with a, "why don't we just go somewhere to camp?" After a busy few weeks, I thought this would be the last thing he wanted to do. We hadn't discussed where we'd camp, but agreed to go somewhere. At dinner with Grandma that evening, she told us how she was planning on going to Whitefish to unload a grill for the house, without any help, so we volunteered to meet her there to help, and then go camping after. 

We scrambled around Friday evening and Saturday morning to get everything packed up. It *barely* fit! After a long drive to Whitefish with a lot of traffic, we met up with Grandma and had lunch at MacKenzie River Pizza before we went out to the house. Although the house had a ton of mosquitoes, the kids enjoyed running around for a few minutes. Charlotte enjoyed running/scooting/rolling down the hill off the deck. SO cute to watch! I would say she's walking 50% of the time now!

Before we left Whitefish, we stopped at Whitefish Lake to meet up with a mutual friend of mine and Perry. Unfortunately they were out on a paddle boat when we arrived which caused us to miss out on seeing them. (I'm hoping to take the kids back up there this week to see them again though!) We finally made it out of Whitefish around 4:00 and planned on camping somewhere in the Swan Lake area, about  2 hours away...and once we started exploring the area, we found every spot was taken. At that point we decide to just camp out at Placid Lake outside of Seeley...when we arrived there, we discovered every spot was taken there too.... So we camped in Grandma's backyard by the river. Basically we spent a total of about 6 hours in the car thorough the entire day, and ended up camping 50 miles from home...

 Camping at Grandma's had a couple big perks though! For one, we were able to use the tractor to haul everything back and forth. For two, it had a bathroom. Enough said. 

Before Perry and I could even get our stuff down by the fire pit, the boys were already playing in the river. Hunter was crawdad hunting and thought he found one. 

 Charlotte was a trooper the entire trip. She hardly fussed at all. She napped for a total of maybe 2 hours throughout the day. And missed out on her morning and afternoon snack. 

 The boys were awesome too! They also missed out on an afternoon snack and kept their attitudes in check throughout the day even though dinner didn't happen until close to 8:00p. 

 After a little arguing, we finally had the tent set up. Perry hates reading the directions...

 Once the boys finished eating, I told them I had a surprise for them - Glow-in-the-dark bubbles. Except they either didn't work, or it wasn't dark enough. I bought glow sticks and dump the insides into the bubbles, and the container was glowing, but the bubbles didn't. 

 Luckily I brought other glow sticks to play with. 

 Like these glasses. Hard to keep on, but fun in the dark!

 Charlotte had her fun with the glow-in-the-dark stuff too!

 JP probably had the most fun though!

 We all crawled into bed around 10:30 and despite the few rocks we were laying on, we all fell asleep fairly quickly. Charlotte woke up around 1:15 and cried for a while. She was probably out of sorts being outside in the dark. After about fifteen minutes of bawling, she finally calmed down, and slept with me. She did the air sucking thing that people do after they stop crying for about half an hour. Does that have a name? 

Just as she was sound asleep, it started sprinkling...Before I knew it, we were in the middle of a down pour with flash lighting and LOUD thunder. It woke Perry up (which is hard to do) and even though two of us were talking in our normal voices, it was still hard to hear each other. Charlotte and Hunter slept through it all. JP woke up at the end of the thunderstorm. He came over to me and told me he was scared, and asked to snuggled with me. Before I could even get a word out, he was snuggled up on my pillow, asleep. Once Perry and I were done laughing about it, I woke him back up to go get his sleeping bag and bring it over next to me. After he was laying there for a while, I asked him how he was doing. "Not good mom!" He then scooted to the bottom of his sleeping bag and plugged his ears for a while... I was just glad JP and Hunter didn't wake up during the storm and need to go to the bathroom! Perry left the tent for a while so he could watch the storm, and there was no way I was about to leave the tent, let alone my sleeping bag!

 I did get to wake up to this cutie though! Actually, it was the sounds of her and Hunter giggling, as he had crawled into the pack-n-play to play with her before we everyone else woke up. 

By the time we left the cabin, we had a lot of tire people! And I'm the only one who hasn't napped yet! Not fair!

Backyard Camping in October

We went camping the other night. Sort of. Except we slept in the house. 

 We've been promising the boys all summer that we would have a campfire, but with all the fires going on, there were restrictions in place that we didn't dare break. So the other night, we made it happen. 

 They were so excited to roast hot dogs over the fire! 

 And they cleaned up there plates just in time to have S'mores!

 Love this kid!

 These boys were super excited to roast marshmallows.

 And even more excited to eat them! I almost teared up when after dinner Hunter, without prompting, volunteered to start taking stuff inside to get ready to make S'mores, and then JP jumped up to help too! They sure know how to melt my heart!

Charli and I warmed up by the fire for a bit, but for the most part, the "camping" was done by Perry and the boys. Poor little Charli and momma are recovering from a bout of thrush, and weren't completely feeling up to being outside. 

Camping Lessons, From a Mom Who Doesn't Camp

If I were to describe myself to someone, outdoorsy probably wouldn't be one of the words I would use. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being outdoors, taking hikes and the like, but let's be honest, I love electricity. Heyo! Check it out, I can flip this switch and I have light! Unfortunately, the man I married, bless his heart, loves to camp. Looks like I have some adjusting to do...

So without further ado, I give you my list of the 8 things I learned while camping - in a tent. The first is the most important one, hence why I'm putting it in the #1 spot, the rest are in random order. Rather, the order I learned them in as the trip progressed.

1. There is a right and wrong way to get in and out of a tent. I unzip tent, step-in, take shoes off, set them on the rug. Don't do that. It's wrong - you'll bring dirt in. Instead, unzip tent, sit down inside tent with feet still outside, take shoes off, place them inside. I get it. Whatever. You try to remember all the steps while carrying a crying baby, in the rain. Stop glaring at me; it's just dirt.

2. The wilderness is no place for a baby to eat. But like I mentioned in the camping post, I couldn't just leave her at home to fend for herself. If you have to bring a baby, bring a formula fed baby. Then all you have to worry about is warming up water, in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity. Good plan... Since giving a baby cold milk is unheard of, better bring a breastfed baby, this way baby always gets warm milk. Know that you are going to have to practically take your shirt off to feed this crying child, in the middle of the night, when you are freezing under layers of blankets already. And pray you don't leak. That shit gets cold up against your body at 3 am. So does baby throw up and baby hands on your tummy. On second thought, better just leave the baby at home to fend for itself.

3. Bring an extra flashlight. And then two more extra. It's inevitable that when you need one, you're not going to be able to find any of them. We, rather, I, brought two. I took a trip to Wal-mart with all three children in tow, so the boys could pick out flashlights. And I didn't even use a cart! And survived! Of course we packed those two flashlights, but I *assumed* Perry would pack at least one more. It would figure that when I really needed one, like at 3 am, neither are to be found.  Picture this: Kiki is crying, I am looking for a flashlight, dad is snoring, and I'm becoming more frustrated without any light source. But at least I was able to find my cell phone which lead me to find a flashlight. Sorry if I woke the whole tent up in the process...

4. This brings me to diapering a baby in the wild. We cloth diaper here in the Dustin household, which leads us to my next point. Cloth or disposable diapers while camping? Both stink. Generally there are no garbage cans in the middle of nowhere, so have fun with that smell if you're using disposables. If you cloth diaper, you probably have a wet bag to put your diapers in. While it's a smart idea to put the clean diapers in a place you can find them in the dark, it's obviously not wise to put them by your head, by a window. When it rains, and leaks into the tent, those suckers are going to absorb it all. At least the tent won't get muddy from all the dirt you tracked in earlier by not not following rule #1. Hey little baby, let me change your diaper from a wet one to a slightly wet one. While we're at it, I hope you don't mind hanging out half naked while I find where the wipes are. Payback for when I have to practically take my shirt off to feed you. Oh, and sorry for the bright light in you face, it's hard to hold a flashlight in your mouth so you can see what you're doing. Changing a diaper in the dark isn't as easy as it sounds. Maybe I should have just left the baby at home?

5. Leave your husband at home. Just kidding. Don't do that. Leave his cell phone and iPad at home. If you don't leave at least his cell phone at home, which doubles as an alarm, you will hear said alarm go off while you are camping, at 6 am. And you'll have to wake him up like you normally do for him to turn it off each morning. Come on - no phones while you're camping! Unless you are the mom, then you're exempt because it falls into the category "For Emergencies Only" (see #3), not the "In case I forget to wake up" category.

6. I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to be breathed on when I'm sleeping. I also hate fans. I cannot stand them blowing on my face. I don't care if I'm sweating, point that fan in a different direction. Maybe this has to do with my childhood fear of wind? With that said, this is probably a surprise to most, but I don't care for Jeep rides. Guess what happens during Jeep rides? I get the wind in my face, the whole trip. And even if we're going slow enough so there is no wind, the truck that passed us going 35 mph just threw wind AND dirt in my face. And I don't like being cold. Wind in my face + being cold = I'm getting pretty miserable, but am sucking it up.

7. Bring extra clothes, a lot of them. I confess, I packed too many clothes on this trip...for myself. Although I packed an extra set for each of my boys, I clearly should have packed a couple sets more. A couple sets were wet from playing in the water, and one set had dirt on it. How come you can wear dirt covered clothes into the tent, but not your clean soled shoes?!

And finally....

8. Camp with people who have been camping multiple times before. They will bring the things you forget. Like food and water. The rug for the shoe rule I didn't know existed. A broom to sweep the tent out because I didn't memorize the shoe rule. And other miscellaneous things you forgot, like a camper, and a toilet...