Camping

Friday we went camping with our ward. The boys had fun. We went early. Nearby where we were camping there is a small zoo. I has animals that are found in Minnesota. We saw river otters, a wolf, a black bear, a cougar, a woodchuck (aka a groundhog), some prarie dogs, some elk and dear, some bison. We saw some farm animals including a mama cow and her baby, a goat, and a pony that Ben tried to feed some straw to. We had more time to kill before setting up our tent, so we went hiking. They have a few trails to chose from. We went over a river and hike quiter a ways, but we weren't quite sure how far until the trail ended. As soon as I started to get tired (Ben was already tired by that time) we turned around.

We were basically the first ones to the campground. We picked a prime location, and set up our tent. As soon as the tent was up and the air matresses inflated, Ben wanted to go to sleep. All he said all night long is I'm tired. We kept the boys up so that they could see the campfire and eat roasted marshmellows.

When it got dark we gave the boys glow sticks and they had fun with them. Ben was kind enough to share one with his friend Ian. Luckliy enough when Ian wandered off, he was still clutching onto the glow stick. That made it easier to find him.

When we went to bed we were able to see the stars. I pointed them out to Gavin and sang twinkle, twinkle little star. He would point to the stars and say star, star. David tried pointing out the big dipper the Ben.

Gavin ended up sleeping between David and I. Gavin was so tired he was out in seconds. Ben had to arrange his stuffed animals, glow stick, and sippy in a certain way before he would go to sleep.

The night was long. I had a hard time going to sleep. There was lots of noise coming from the camfire. They had started singing camp songs, and did it loud. Then they started telling riddles. Finally after a while it was dead silent. I had a hard time going to sleep because I needed to use the bathroom. We all got some sleep. I was informed that the purpose in camping isn't to come and get sleep.

In the morning, no one knew who was in charge of breakfast. I would have gone over to help, but my little shadows would have made it hard. Ben was starving by the time breakfast was served. We had pancakes and the boys liked that. I would stand in line while David helped them eat. Each time I went through, I was able the get three or four, come back and give most of those away to the boys. I had to stand in line about 5 times before I was full.

David was good enough to pack up the stuff while breakfast was being served. We had to wait for the tent to dry. The tent was covered in dew in the morning. It almost looked as if it rained during the night. I'm glad David pulled the rain fly tight or else we would have been wet in the morning.