Aaahhh, the Ward Camp Out. Nothing quite like it. If you're not familiar with the concept of the Mormon Ward Camp Out, here is the basic formula: spend hours packing up all your gear, arrive around dinner on Friday night, only to pack up first thing in the morning and clear out by 10. That pretty much leaves you enough time eat your weight in S'mores, not sleep at all, and absorb that campfire smell in every thing you brought so that you have to do laundry for a week. And amazingly, we love it and look forward to it every year.
It was our first attempt at camping with Nate, and he did fantastic. We opted to squeeze everyone into our small 4 man tent, rather than our 4 family tent from Costco that is about the same size as our first apartment but has more rooms. We enjoyed talking with friends and sitting around the campfire, and everyone slept soundly through the night, except me which is pretty much standard fare while camping, so no big surprise there. The next morning we decided to stay after everyone else had left because our kids didn't seem dirty enough, and we thought that hanging out at the river and playing with rocks and mud would remedy that situation. It worked well, and after a while felt sufficiently camped out enough to head home. I think we'll be ready for our next real camping trip, which we also always look forward to: Mt. Rainier over Labor Day weekend. In the meantime, we're still working on that pile of laundry. Oh, and eating the leftover S'mores fixings- yummmmm.
4 comments:
I love your description of ward campouts..you are exactly right! I think our Costco tent is also bigger than our first apartment. Your family is too sweet.
I chickened out of our ward campout this year. I was trying to wean the baby to the bottle and I dind't know if there would be clean water for formula. Matt and my other kids went and had a blast. Maybe next year ...
Oh the good old ward campout! I'm glad you guys had a good time and Nate enjoyed his first camping experience. :)
Hey camping buddies, we were also preparing for the Mt. Rainier trip this past weekend, and we had a nearly identical camping trip. Arrive late Friday: check. Little/no sleep: check. Smores and smokey smell in all our belongings and on our persons: check.
We arrived home by 1pm Saturday, and I went straight to bed for the next hour. I have no idea what the kids did during that time.
When we first got to our campsite and Nicki saw the bathrooms, I overheard her say "Oh I hope they are flushies!" But alas, it was not to be.
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