Family Camping: Day 1

It's been a few years but we finally bought some new tents and took a camping trip up to Donnelly, Idaho. I have to say if you can go camping during the week, I definitely recommend it!  We left Monday morning and came home Wednesday afternoon. There were other people camping in our campsite but we were not surrounded by anybody in the spot we reserved. It was so nice and that made up for having a spot closer to the main road. It only would have been better if we had a few more shade trees on our camp site or at least closer to our tents, etc. We want to invest in a canopy so we can make our own shade next time. 

So Monday we got to our camp site around 1:30 pm. We quickly unloaded and pitched our tents and then made some hoagie sandwiches for lunch. We quickly figured out that the water they had available for drinking, etc. had that sulfur smell/taste to it. Honestly, it's nothing new since I used to smell/taste this in the water we drank at the cabin growing up. The old cabin was actually almost directly across the lake from our camp site. We had bought a block of ice for our water cooler on the way out of town but did not fill it until we got to camp. Nikki, Garrett and I decided we would have to go to the gas station in Donnelly to buy some clean filtered drinking water and another block of ice. There was no way we were going to drink that sulfur water for 3 days! We had to dump all the water we had filled into the cooler out but saved the ice block. While we were gone Curtis took the younger 3 kids down to the water to do some swimming. Our camp site was right off the lake but there was a lot of grass in our area so the beach was pretty small. Nikki, Garrett and I joined them swimming after we got back.

After we changed out of our swim suits we got busy with making kabobs for dinner. Yum! Steak, mushrooms, peppers and red onions cooked on our little portable grill. Then we popped some campfire popcorn. We had a little down time so I went into my tent and did a small ab workout from an app I have on my phone. I'm pretty happy with myself for actually doing it while on vacation because that never happens! That night after the 4 other kids were in their tents Curtis, Nikki and I got out his telescope and did some star gazing. The moon was full that night and looked so bright! I could see it shining through the trees and took some pictures. I got tired and went to bed before Nikki and Curtis. They said they were able to find Saturn and see it's rings. So cool!

This was before I showed up but it looks like Charlotte was carrying Alice. She's such a good big sister!

All of our kids did really well helping out during this camping trip, especially the older kids. It made it so much nicer!

The girls and I rode circles around the camp while waiting for the kabobs to finish cooking. I'm so glad we took Charlotte's, Jack's and my bike. It definitely gave something for Charlotte to do and so glad there were paved roads. We also took Alice's new scooter since she doesn't have a bike.

They were so excited to sleep in the tent they kept going in there before it was even bed time.

My shot of the moon through the trees. The moon was so bright that when I went back to my tent I didn't need a flashlight to get into my pajamas.