Saturday, March 16, 2013

Spring Break Campout!

My brother Shad had a blast camping on a lake front shelter site at Lake Livingston state park last year.  In fact, he had so much fun that he booked 8 of the 10 shelter sites for 3 nights (March 13-15) over spring break this year and invited us to come!
We brought our buddies the T family, my sister Jamie and fam drove down from Dallas, my sister Carrie came, and 3 families from Shad's ward.  It was a blast.  The kids ran and played and fished all day, the adults chatted and played and fished all day, and Shad set up a movie projector on the back of one of the shelters each night.  It was just about as perfect of a camping trip as you could want.  I loved watching the sunrises and sunsets over the lake, and the quiet lapping of the water.  I searched pinterest for food ideas and we had such yummy meals the whole time.  And we really enjoyed the time with friends and family.  We might have to make this a tradition!

The sunset on March 13.  I will admit this was NOT my favorite camping day.  I spent the morning finishing our camping prep, loading the car, driving the hour to the campsite, unloading the car, setting up the shelter, feeding the kids dinner, etc--all on my own since Dan needed to conserve vacation days and wasn't coming up until after work the next day.  But we pushed through and bedtime came and I survived :)

My nephews fishing.  I love this pic.  I love those boys.

Our family's shelter

Shad caught the best fish of the trip on that first evening--it was big!

We enjoyed our morning on the 14th.  We'd been cold but not uncomfortable through the night and had a nice simple oatmeal breakfast.   

Brooke and Megan's favorite part of the trip was having command of their own flashlights.  They loved them.

I even tried my hand at fishing on Thursday.  

And proved--I still got it!  Look at that fishy!

Megan T and Chloe became fast friends.

Candy and Kenzie were such cute buddies--they got so dirty everyday but had so much fun.

We went to a ranger talk on Friday and then rode bikes over to a little park.


Silly girls playing in the piles of dead leaves.

Silly girls playing in the afternoon.  They all enjoyed trying fishing too.  Therefore my brother Shad spent a great deal of time every day re-stringing fishing poles and replacing lost bobbers.  He's the best.

The inside of our shelter.  Dan and I slept on the air mattress downstairs with Candy in the pack-n-play (there's also a picnic table down there).

Megan and Brooke's beds up in the loft.

You can't see it, but that's a bald eagle right there in the middle--really, it was!

We saved our best meal for last--lemon curry dutch oven chicken--yum, yum, and yum.

The last sunset (March 15).

All 12 grandkids from my family---age 12 down to 20 months

My family minus Dad and Tyler

Our family--looking pretty rough but we got a pic :)

My sister Jamie and her fam...

Our great buddies--the T family.  We are so glad they came along!

One more silly shot


Love this pic of Brooke and Maddie

And---we successfully wiped out the girls.  This was about 5 minutes into the ride home :)

1 comment:

Glen & Kat said...

I'm liking the shelter...definitely the way to camp! And that chicken sounds yummy. It sounds like you had a great time!