A-Camping We Did Go

We've gone camping the last two weekends in a row. The first outing was our ward (church) camp out. It was just a one-nighter, but we had a great time. Scotty was on the planning committee, and therefore, I was on the planning committee by marriage. Things went pretty smoothly, though. Our kids had a blast running around with their friends.

This past weekend, we went camping as a family. Now that we are getting further away from the diaper and bottle lifestyle, we can start doing this more!

(Even though it's a ton of work to go camping, and I'm daunted by it every time!)

I bought Scotty a new tent for myself for Father's Day.

I have tent issues. I hate being in tents. I feel like I can't move. But our new tent is a "cabin" tent, so it's nice and tall, and I can stand up straight in it. That made a huge difference. Scotty didn't really want a new tent, but after we camped in it, he admitted it was a good buy.

Plus it has lights! LIGHTS!! They were pretty amazing. You push a button and the tent lights up.

Holla!

Since we went camping over Father's Day, let me preface this post with a few camping-related details about the father of my children.

During the day, the picnic table at our camp site was in direct sun, and it was pretty hot. I commented on this fact, and within a few minutes, Scotty had strung a tarp over our camp spot.

I joked that I was thinking about leaving Scotty after we got home from camp, but his tarp hanging skills were so excellent, I decided to stick with him a while longer. 

Really, though, Scotty's tarp hanging skills are pretty sexy. The fact that I can make a subtle comment about the lack of shade, and he creates shade for our family within minutes is a part of his character that I really adore. 

Another series of attributes Scotty has can be seen in the way he handled this scenario:

We went for a walk around Silver Lake, and Scotty saw that someone had left a make-shift teeter totter on the side of the path. He got so excited and told Nicky to get on the other side. They teetered. They tottered. And then the log snapped in half, and Scotty flew to the ground and landed flat on his back. 

And he just laid there laughing. 

I love this about him... how he has a playful side and gets excited about things like teeter totters made from tree stumps, and how something can go wrong, and he will still laugh about it.

I felt some gag-worthy love toward this guy over Father's Day. I'm so grateful to share my life with him. And I am utterly spoiled. 

As you can see in the photos, there's still snow in the canyon. There wasn't any where we were camping, though. We camped a lot lower, but we drove up to the lake where there was still quite a bit of snow. There were people snowboarding and skiing still! 

{a mound of snow at Brighton Ski Resort}

Silver Lake still had some ice on it in some places. 

And about half the trail was still covered in snow. It made for a fun, adventurous walk.

Back at our camp, we hung out in hammocks, ate some interesting campfire food (post to follow), played card games galore (I taught my kids how to play Cover Your Assets, Speed, and Solitaire), and surveyed the wildlife. 

On Sunday morning, a moose wandered right through our camp site. We moved our kids behind the picnic table as a precaution, but he just moseyed on by.

We all had a great time and came home sufficiently filthy and reeking of "camp."