We Camped and I Blogged About It

When I fall behind on scrapbooking/blogging/family albums, etc, I suck at jumping back in because I want to catch up on SO much.  Then I am overwhelmed so I just don't. Blah.  I am just starting from now.  If I decide to catch up on past events, well, bonus points I guess.

A few weeks ago, we learned something about our little family that I think we knew but had never really processed.  We love to camp.  Now, ok, to be fair we knew this.  We just didn't realize how much our family needs to do this.  Getting away, with no agenda, and spending most of our time outdoors, riding bikes, scooters, roasting hot dogs, being silly...we needed this.

For weeks, the attitude in our home (Rusty and I especially) was off.  We were snippier than normal, tired, cranky.  Being very honest, it was taking its toll.  We planned a camping trip knowing we needed to just get away.  Our last camping trip was in August, and our last trip as just a family had been a year and a half ago.

Ya'll it was a cure all for us.  Not even exaggerating here.  Completely reset the temperature in our home.

And as is probably apparent, I wanted to take more photos with the big camera than I have been lately and wanted as little as possible of them to be posed for.   Pictures that serve to remind me we need this.

We Jumped

Disclaimer:  If you are a real cliff jumper, sky diver, hang glider, etc, ignore me in this post.  I am apparently a chicken so to me this was big.

I mentioned in the last post we jumped.  I felt that these pictures deserved their own post.

Inks Lake has this area called Devils Water Hole.  It is a set of rocks that crazy folks like to jump from. Since we have always visited Inks Lake during spring break, this is something we haven't experienced yet. It is entirely too cold for that in March.  My kids REQUIRED this during our August trip though.  The "normal" jumping rock is approximately 20ish feet high and the tallest being approx 40ish feet high.  EVERYONE from our party jumped on day 1.  Here is everyone in order.

Jadyn

Rylee

Dalton

Emma (Rusty is not throwing her, he is making sure she is far enough off the rocks to be safe!)

Aaron

Amanda

Rusty

Colton

Jackson

Two pictures are missing here.  One of Aaron jumping from the higher peak there on the left of the picture.  Approx 40 ish feet high.  From my understanding it was a fairly painful jump :)

The second missing picture would be me.  It took an additional 24 hours for me to muster up the courage to jump.  And, in all fairness, I am not even sure I ever really mustered up the courage.  I did not like the idea of being the only one, THE ONLY ONE, in our group to not jump so I forced myself.  Y'all words cannot describe how scared I was.  Petrified.  Terrified.  Anxious.  Panicked.  It was horrible.  I physically could not jump.  Petrified is probably a VERY accurate word.  I couldn't move.  My husband was waiting for me in the water, I was squeezing Aaron's hand way too tight.  I could not jump.  My legs would not work.  My brain simply could not understand why I was jumping from perfectly safe ground.  The best I could muster up was more of a tuck and fall off the rock :)  Very cool huh?  Um no.  Apparently I didn't look like I would make it to the water.  Looked a little to Rusty and Aaron like I could smash my terrified self on the rocks on my way down.  I did not however.  I survived.  With no one to take my picture.

In my attempt to look cool and keep up with the crowd I think actually made me look silly.  Oh well. Let this be a lesson.  Stand against peer pressure.  Or I should get new (more chicken like) friends?

Our Last Summer Hoorah

We finally got the opportunity to show the Collins' family Inks Lake.  Being we were planning to camp in August, knowing the Texas heat and all, we prayed HARD for water sites.  And water sites we got!  We lounged, we ate, we drank, we swam, we jumped, we even got to see a meteor shower 2 nights in a row. Gorgeous views, great friends.  I cannot think of a better end to a CRAZY summer!  And now I will flood the rest of this post with pictures!

Dalton and Colton feed the ducks early one morning.  It wasn't foggy out, my camera was just fogged up. Kind of a cool accident I thought!

Emma and her love of Little Peoples.

That were played with inside the big kids "Sunnyside Day Care."  Yes, the same day care from Toy Story 3.

Jackson just because he is cute.

And Rylee because she is cute.  And I never knew how happy freckles could make me until this kid.  

What most days looked like.

Unless your Kinley.  Then, your days involved booster seats and cheetos :)  Ok, not the ENTIRE time ;)  

And proof we were there too.

Up next...cliff jumping.  It deserved its own post.

How We Camp: Equipment

I am working on a post about our final camping trip of the summer.  yep its November.  and I still posting about summer.  slacker.

Before I get to it, I thought I would post about our favorite camping stuff.  Anytime someone hears we are camping in the summer they think we are crazy!  I thought it would be fun to share some different posts on things that have made camping easier for us.  First,  I have compiled a list of our favorite pieces.

• EZ Up canopy.  Shade.  'Nuff said.  If you can have 2 (which we do) even better. We keep tables holding our food and supplies under one and we sit under another.  We have a canopy that has detachable sides.  PERFECT for hanging to block direct sun when your cooking/prepping meals.  Standing over a hot grill with 110 degree sun beating down on you...no good.  You will hate camping and never want to do it again.

• A great, high velocity fan. A great fan helps keep cool sitting outside as well as helping inside at night. We have one similar to this one that you can find here

  

  Amazon

• Until 2 years ago, we tent camped.  Even in a tent, I want to be comfortable.  Enter large tent and air mattresses.  A large tent means you can put multiple air mattresses, a fan, and your bags in with you.  Convenience will always make you enjoy camping more.  Similar one here.  Let me also add that you should have a tarp under your tent as a prep for unexpected rain.  

Academy

• We no longer are tent campers now though.  We're movin' on up...Similiar camper found here. We purchased ours used on Craigslist about 2 years ago for a great deal!  Now, camper shopping on Craigslist is a blog post of tips all by itself!  

• This next item isn't a MUST have but it is a great convenience that we LOVE.  It's a table and grill set. Very convenient!  We eat like kings when we camp so a good grill IS a necessity for us!  This is the exact grill here  and table here.  Rusty loves that it doesn't sit on the table, getting the table dirty and greasy.

Sam's Club Table and Grill

• For this next tip, we don't have an actual brand we are in love with, but we always have a few ice chests.  One ice chest for just drinks!  That will be the most opened chest and also the one if it isn't a certain temperature, you aren't going to get sick!  A second ice chest holds just food. It's opened the least amount therefore staying coldest.  Therefore no food poisoning :)  Always a plus.  Often we take a third ice chest just for extra ice.  This is especially beneficial if your camping for more than a weekend and will need to replenish your other ice chests often.

• And for the occasional cold nights we just use a small space heater.

• Oh and a recent discovery.  Camping with small kids?  A cheap-o small tent.  Portable playroom! Then they are confined if needed and no child is tracking dirt all day long in and out of the "main" sleeping quarters!

Maybe this will help anyone planning a trip in the future.  Maybe everyone knows these already.  

An Independence Day for the Books

Oh boy.  Happy Birthday America.  I need some ibuprofen.  And a nap.  And a vacation.  from my vacation.

This isn't to say this wasn't a wonderful, fun filled July 4th getaway.  But, again, I had 6 kids with me, not including the Collins family of an additional 4 kids.  It was a wild one.  Due to the wild nature of it, I did not take near as many pictures as I normally do.

Kenzie, Addy, & Ayden enjoyed their first camping trip, boat ride, tubing and fishing!  My kids, as usual, had a blast swimming in the lake.

We grown up's enjoyed our deep, thought provoking late night conversations.   Ok deep they were not. Hysterical they were though.

We did not enjoy the 40+ splinters Ayden managed to get in his hands and feet while fishing.

Nor did we enjoy the 19 stitches Jadyn received in her side after a run in with a boat propeller (it wasn't on). I will paint this picture now.  All kids are swimming in between the Mosley pier and the neighbors pier (which has a waterslide the kids use).  This is normal, its where they spend all their water time.  One of the neighbors sons had brought in his small boat and tied it off right where all the kids were and did not pull the prop out of the water.

I do not point this out to point blame just to illustrate how this could have happened. Truthfully, as many adults as we had, I totally believe one of us should have been paying closer attention and realized the hazard here.

The kids were continuing to swim around the boat to get to the ladder, Jadyn swam right along the blade, slicing her side open.  I will spare you all a before picture, just imagine a huge open wound with all the fatty tissue exposed.  It was gruesome.  She comes out of the water, sees blood and screams for her dad.  Rylee and one of the neighbor boys see the wound at this time and go into shear panic and fear.  John (Amanda's dad) and Rusty are the first to realize something is terribly wrong.  Rusty said the look on Rylee's face was pure panic.  Poor girl was sobbing and incredibly fearful for her sister.  Aaron and I notice there is some commotion outside, we head out the door and I see/hear Rusty holding Jadyn's side screaming for me to get a towel.  We run in for a towel, run outside to Rusty and Jadyn.  Rusty says it's bad, we need to get to the hospital.  At this point I haven't seen the wound, but I know my husband.  If he says we are going to the hospital, I know its bad.  We load Jadyn in the backseat and Aaron offers to ride along.

Yes, we leave Amanda and her parents behind with 9 kids.  I think Aaron my have been a little grateful for a reason to getaway.

On the 8 minute ride to the hospital, Jadyn has the chills and wants to go to sleep.  Not knowing exactly how bad this is, I refuse to let her and admit this worries me.  We arrive at the hospital, go into the waiting room, check in, a triage nurse comes over, pulls a towel back and tells she is stable.  I relax so much at this point. Still haven't seen the wound myself yet.

It was pretty quick they move us into a room, although they apologized for the wait repeatedly.  We are from Houston.  This was NOT a wait.  This is when I finally see the wound.  Thank God we were at the hospital and had already been told she was stable or I would have panicked (more than I did).  She was a champ. Got her 19 stitches (13 above, 6 under) with just a whimper.  Biggest bummer about this was that she couldn't swim the rest of the weekend.  That really only took her out Saturday so it could have been worse. She handled that well too!

You know its been a wild weekend when 19 stitches isn't the worse thing to happen. 2:30 am I get a call that my dad fell off of his roof that night, broke bones in his neck, back and shattered his pelvis.  Good ever lovin' grief. 

We loaded up quickly and early that next morning and headed to the hospital.  Vacation officially over.
( This is Jadyn and I just wanted Y'all to know that I didn't notice that I got cut till I got out of the water and saw alot of blood then I started freaking out. The part that hurt the most about it was when they numbed me with shots they put INSIDE my cut and it felt like a million of fire ant decided to climb in my cut and started biting)
me. Also I didn't know that the already started till I asked when they were gonna start and they already did.) 

Our Summer in Numbers

Mustang Island

At this point, if you know us at all, is it any surprise that we would kickoff the first day of summer vacation with our camper?

via Etsy

This seriously has become our motto.

This time we loaded up and headed off to Mustang Island State Park for a few days with our camping buddies The Collins.  Photo overload ahead.

After our Destin camping trip last year, we have learned a few beach camping tips that we strongly took into consideration.

1. Kids want to just be at the beach.  That is it.  Kids are rarely cranky if they are in the water. This beach trip, we only went out for the basics once (Sam's Club to restock ice) and dinner/souvenior shopping once.  Beyond this you could find us near the water.
2. Breakfast time seems hotter than dinner time (to us). We did not plan to make large breakfast meals every morning.  We tend to eat like kings when we camp so this is definitely a new modification for us.
3. It will rain.  Almost everyday.  Just expect it and plan for it.  No need to be annoyed, frustrated, surprised, etc.  It will rain.  Just expect it.

These couple of tips helped make this beach trip amazing.  One I think we would all be willing to do again!

Kids had a blast boogie boarding, Kinley loved the sand.  One day we even had our own little private piece of paradise on the bay side where they fisherman fished, kids collected shells, Amanda caught crabs, and I sunned.  Oh and a dead shark entertained us all for hours. 

                       

Arrow marks the rash Rylee sustained from her boogie board.

"If I were a bad guy, I would so steal this baby." -Rylee

We had a little bit of dorky fun with my camera.  Enter The Amazing Levitating Babies.  Children don't try this at home.  No babies were harmed in the making of these photos.

Attempted to teach Amanda to levitate too.  She didn't.

Even the rain storm was entertaining for us.  By us I mean Amanda and I.  Not Aaron and Rusty. They lived though :)

                                    

Another fantastic camping trip down.  

Someone teach me how to slow all the fun down?