The family adventure from you know where

Here are the kids on the way to Devils Lake, Wisconsin for a quick camping trip the weekend after school started.  This is the only pic we got of the weekend.  Why?  Because things only went downhill from here.  Remember when I said that camping wasn't so bad?  That there might be a chance that I even maybe... liked...it?  Well, I lied.  Fresh off our not so bad experience over the 4th, when Evan mentioned that he'd been dying to take the family up to this awesome lake in Wisconsin, I wasn't too hard to convince.  Heck, it might even be fun!  Some good, wholesome family memories right?  So I spent that Friday the kids were in school packing us up and getting things all ready for our "weekend of fun."  Evan got off work and we set off on our three hour journey.  Why so far to go camping for a night?  Because according to Evan, the lake was amazing and this was one camping experience we didn't want to miss.

The drive took forever but we finally made it to our campground around 8 pm.  No biggie!  Evan just needed to make a quick fire, I'd get the tinfoil dinners on, and we'd get camp all set up.  Problem was the newspaper needed to start the fire had been forgotten and what was supposed to be a quick fire turned into an hour long process.  I finally throw the dinners on and when we go to set up the tent, no lantern.  Also forgotten.  We did not have an ounce of light to see by.  Awesome.  Using our handy dandy phones for light, Evan set up camp while I tried to wrangle the 3 hyper kids into making some smores.  Because, you know, when your kids are already psycho from their first week of school and a three hour drive, pump 'em full of sugar!  That's the ticket!  Oh and what's that kids?  Mosquitoes biting your legs off?  Oops, Mom forgot to pack the bug spray so since we're not eating dinner, let's make sure the mosquitoes get theirs!  The boys scouts just might have been onto something with that whole "be prepared" thing. 

About a hundred smores later, the tent was finally ready to go.  At this point, it's 10 o'clock and I'm wrestling the kids to the bathrooms to clean the melted marshmallows off their faces and threatening them within an inch of their lives that it's time to get ready for bed!  Oh yeah, awesome family memories going down right now.  I get the kids back to camp and Evan helps me hog tie the kids into their beds.  And when one child refuses to settle down?  No prob.  We throw him in the van and tell him to sleep there.  Parenting at its best, folks.  Evan and I finally settle down around 10:30 to eat our tinfoil dinners.  Because, you know, that's what time this pregnant woman likes to eat dinner.  And since we were so busy dealing with kiddos and making those wonderful smore memories, I never once checked on the dinners.  Which have now cooked themselves into a pile of charcoal.  Yum.  So after our delicious dinner, time for some husband/wife bonding 'round the campfire.  But for some reason, we can't seem to keep the fire going.  After a few minutes staring at each other in total darkness, I announce date night over and time for bed!  Give me a good night's rest and surely things will look better in the morning.  We settle down onto the air mattress (after retrieving a certain child from the van) and what's that I hear?  A whistling sound?  Probably nothing!  That is until Evan and I start our slow descent to the ground.  A hole in the air mattress?  Perfect!  Just what this pregnant woman wants.  To sleep peacefully on the rocky ground.  I just love camping.

Factor in the kid (not ours, surprisingly) screaming for 20 minutes at 4 in the morning, the rocks digging into my pregnant belly, the kids waking up at 4:30 am (YAY!) and me staring at the massive amount of daddy long legs crawling all over our tent screen (EW!!) and I'm ready to pack it in.  But wait!  We need to see this awesome lake and make some more treasured family memories.  So Evan takes the kiddos out in a boat to the middle of the lake.  Colt's trying to dive in, Cade's screaming every time the boat so much as rocks an inch, and Delaney's crying to be held.  By now even Evan, camper extraordinaire, was ready to close up shop.  We loaded up the kids (after busting out the first aid kit for Cade who scraped off half the skin on his body running to the car) and convince ourselves that someday...in the very far future...we might laugh about this train wreck of a camping trip.

Evan's worried that he might not be able to convince me to go camping again.  I figure that's what I'm giving him three sons for.  Camp with them.  As for Delaney girl and I, you'll find us at the Marriott.