Lake Hope Camping Trip

This weekend we went on a trip to Lake Hope.  It was FANTASTIC!  Ok, let me rephrase that.  It was fantastic when it wasn't raining...lol.  We left on Friday around noon.  We stopped to pick up a friend and her two kids.  My hubby would follow soon along with my friends husband and son. 

We arrived at the lake shortly after 3.  Two moms, 5 kids, all of whom are 4 years and younger (4, 4, 2, 10 months and 3 months).  We have 3 tents to set up, theirs, ours and the screen tent.  Thank goodness for the DVD player in the van, which reminds me, weren't we going camping to "get away" from it all?  OH well!  :D

We get three tents up before the men arrive.  YAY!  Our goal was achieved.  When the men get there we then start a fire and get dinner going.  Too bad none of us took lessons on starting a fire before we left.  Attempt one on getting the kids s'mores: FAILED.  Four children were very sad that first night as they went to bed.  Not to worry though, all the grown-ups eventually got their s'mores.  :)  The fire didn't last too long though.  So where you would normally see a group of people sitting around a campfire, we sat around a lantern.  I am still laughing about that.

Saturday:
We hung around camp.  The men went somewhere...still not sure what took them so long to do whatever it was that they did...lol.  Then we had lunch and the kids got their first s'mores.  Not sure how we got that fire going but we did it.  Then the kids and mommys went swimming.  As we were splashing around in the water it starts to sprinkle.  The sprinkle turned into a rain shower.  So we gathered the kids and went to the bathroom (since it was the only REAL one and we wanted to take advantage of it).  As we are leaving it started to DOWNPOUR!  Oy.  But the kids had a blast running through the rain.  We got back to camp and were trying to organize everything so the men could hopefully go biking in a couple hours since the downpour didn't last too long.  Well, the weather had other plans...insert second downpour here.  We have a couple kids and a daddy in one tent and a few other kids and the other three grown-ups in the screen tent.  Yes, you read that right...the screen tent.  Why the three of us chose a SCREEN tent I will never know.  But if you sat in the center of the picnic table only your legs got wet.  I was one of the grown ups in that screen tent.  I was holding Bubby.  Bubby thought this whole idea of raining and running around like crazy people was hilarious!  He laughed nearly the whole time.

Shortly after the downpour the men decided since mountain biking was out that they would go on a road ride.  So they did.  And apparently there was another downpour...but just on them...not everyone back at camp.  While they were gone the mommy's played card games while some kids rested and other quietly played.  They we had some kielbasa.  I have had that once before and I didn't care for it, but cooked on an open grill and served on a bun, it was pretty darn tasty!  We used charcoal for that fire...and it worked well for cooking.  In order to try to start the wood fire we tried yet again to start another fire.  We used the coals to start the wood on fire and it worked pretty well.  As long as we kept the portable fan we had brought on it.  We had the WORST luck getting that fire started.  Here's to hoping we have learned something and can start a good fire next time. 

Sunday:
We wake up and we notice pretty quickly that the sky is pretty grey.  So we decide to call it a trip, pack up and head home.  After breakfast and getting the kids set up with the DVD player in the van (thank goodness for technology) we start to break down camp.  And the rain starts to come down too.  At this point we are so tired and over it we threw on some ponchos (that I got for $0.57 each last summer!) and broke down camp...tents and all.  We were soaked, the tents were soaked, the dog was soaked (did I mention that my friends family brought their cute little puppy?  She was GREAT!  We loved having her there), and the grown-ups were soaked.  We headed out.  And wouldn't you know it...the sun came out and the sky turned blue.  I cannot tell you how mad we were....lol. 

This was one of the BEST camping trips ever.  The downpours made it more fun.  I am so glad that we got to go and spend it with great friends.  I can't wait to do it again.  :D