Camping

We squeezed in a camping trip near the end of summer. I'm so glad we did. It was great to be dirty and live among the trees for the weekend. We stayed at Monte Cristo Campground, which was less than two hours away, had a nice private campground for us to sleep under the stars, and had a bathroom not too far away for the preggo person. The place was crawling with chipmunks (which were fun) and bees (not as fun). 

We made it a "Spanish date," so we only spoke Spanish, and it really boosted the kids' Spanish speaking (they tend to listen in Spanish but respond in English a lot of the time).

We got there Friday and set up camp, then we had some noodles and hot dogs, plus hot chocolate and marshmallows. The kids were in heaven over the hot dogs and marshmallows and had been looking forward to that all week. :) Then we brushed teeth in the dark and slept under the stars. Chad brought a powerful green laser home from China, so we always have a great time playing with that in the dark (it's a great star and satellite laser pointer). We slept pretty well - my camping mat is actually better for me than the mattress we're using in our "downstairs bedroom" (been sleeping in the basement this summer cause it's so hot).

Dirt!

Brushing teeth and getting ready to go to sleep

Our view in the morning

Saturday, we took a little hike that no one was too excited about, then the kids mostly played all day in the dirt with toys they brought. They're at this super easy age where they just play together all the time and Chad and I don't have too much to do. :) For lunch we explored the canyon a bit and ate sandwiches out of our car on a super windy overlook.

On our little hike

We brought up some leftover Chinese snacks - the kids really liked these two!

Playing in the dirt

Can you tell how excited these girls are about being in the mountains?

It rained on us Sunday morning. Luckily our tarp is super long, so we pulled it over the top of us and hung out in our little "tent" for a while. Later Chad taught us a little lesson from 3rd Nephi and we played and cleaned up camp. I love spending time with my family!

I love how much these girls love each other