We attempted our first group camping adventure with several other families from our church. Since so many were going and we all made reservations, we decided to go for it, rain or shine. Here was the set up at our campsite. Our site buddy, Cy (minus his wife and sick son...bummer!) was awesome. He had the idea to have both of our tents face his extra canopy for added rain protection. Genius! It had rained all day Friday, but once we arrived to camp and began to set up, the rain was tapering off. Sweet!
What is the very first thing one should do when arriving at a campground? Go frog hunting! Ainsley and her buddies found a few right away.
We had a great evening for some campfire smores. Interesting how all the adults were standing or sitting around and the children were working with the fire. 
Cy introduced us all to a camping treat his family enjoys, the banana boat. It's a banana, cut open and topped with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. Then you wrap it in foil and heat it over the fire. A tasty new treat!
Rain? What rain? Grant had told us all that on the Wednesday prior to camping, when the weather was great, that he was outside eating his lunch at work and God told him, "If you think today's weather is fancy, you just wait until this weekend!" Well, he was so right! It was supposed to be super rainy and stormy, and here is a picture of our Friday evening sky. It was PERFECT camping weather. A beautiful night and blessing from the Lord.
Another new campfire snack...tube biscuits cooked over the flames (thanks, Tracey!) When camping, you have to eat something with the pliers on your Leatherman. You simply must. It's so rugged. 
We slept pretty well. The only misfortune we had was a slow leak in one of our air mattresses. Bennett woke up looking like she was stuck in a venus fly trap. Terrifying!
No rain Friday night, no rain overnight on Friday/Saturday....a DOWNPOUR on Saturday morning. It didn't last long, really, before the weather cleared again for a beautiful Saturday. Here are the soggy camp leaders during breakfast. Despite the rain, we still managed a hot breakfast over a raging fire. 
The kids kept themselves busy during the breakfast downpour by making cool stuff out of colored duct tape. 
Duct tape headbands are all the rage!
Some of us went on a hike on Saturday afternoon. It was a blast! Here is a picture of the girls getting ready to hike. You see lots of cool things on nature hikes like...shirtless trail runners? 
Here are some of the hikers. Lots of great things were discussed on the hike, such as poison ivy, slugs, worms, pregnant worms, animal tracks, deer noises and Will Ferrell as Harry Caray. 
Two dads, working together to push a stroller with relatively small wheels up a relatively steep incline.
Everybody, stop and gather round for a nature lesson by "Ranger Rick" a.k.a. Zach. 
Is this a regular worm or a pregnant worm? 
Back at camp it was dinner time! Here is Cy with his mammoth burger. 
A makeshift extra rain canopy was created as rain continue to be forecast. Who's idea was it to hold this up with a large freestanding tree branch? This doesn't seem to pass any type of safety code, in my opinion. 
Here is one tall, hot campfire.
The older girls wrote and performed a play for us at dinnertime. Bravo, girls! Bravo!
More campfire friends drove down to hang around the fire later in the evening. We were super pleased to see our friends, and the kids were quite excited that the very popular pup, Tank/Kisses was in attendance. Here is Tank, posing with Nick for a picture. He's obviously very comfortable having his photo taken, as he's kind of a trophy pet. Finally at about 9:30, a storm rolled through and our visiting friends had to leave, which was a bummer. But all in all, we had a fantastic group camping experience. We simply MUST do it again this summer!
