Camping

We had a fun time camping last weekend (we'll be camping again this weekend too!) Our trip started off interesting. Doug and a friend of his welded on a travel rack of some sort to the back of the tent trailer so that we could put things on the back while we were traveling and not have so much stuff in the back of the car. Things were fine until after we left Walmart (we had to fill up the cooler and other containers with food) and we were on the highway. As we started going down one of the hills the tent trailer started swaying back and forth making the suburban move back and forth. When Doug would put on the breaks it would swing more as would when he would accelerate. Doug figured that it would do less damage if it tipped over if we were going slower so he went ahead and put more pressure on the breaks and the tent trailer started to slowly come back in line with us. We figured the problem was that the cooler was heavier on than the other containers were so it was making things lopsided which caused the tent trailer to swing. So we moved the cooler inside the tent trailer, readjusted the other boxes and started out again (this time with no more swaying!) The kids of course thought it was really cool that the suburban was going back and forth on the road and wanted to do it again!

The rest of the drive was uneventful. We decided to try and find a camping spot at one of the first camp sites we got to this time (the kids were getting hungry and tired of being in the car for 2 hours). The first camp site was full, so we ended up going to the same campsite we had before. As luck would have it one of the very few campsites open was the exact same one we had stayed at before! The kids thought that was pretty cool! We unloaded, got unpacked and fed the kids. Than while I stayed at camp with the little guys trying to get them to take a nap (CJ finally did, but Jaxon and I ended up hanging out and making things with rocks!) Doug took the other three on a long hike. They had a lot of fun building dams, saving fish, and crossing the river (Doogie crawled across a big tree trunk all by himself to cross the river!). When CJ woke up from his nap we all went down to the river to play for a while before we had dinner. Jaxon has gotten really brave lately and went right into the water, CJ on the other hand thought it was way too cold and as soon as his feet got wet wanted someone to hold him! Anyways, we wore the kids out playing down by the river and playing some games around the campsite. At bedtime I went and took CJ in the tent trailer, we thought it would be easier to get him to sleep first before we brought the other kids in...yeah...that didn't work! He ended up being the last one to go to sleep! Jayde was the first, followed by Jaxon, Ryann and than Doogie!

Sometime in the middle of the night we heard a thump. Doug jumped out of bed and went to investigate. Doogie had fallen out of the bed and had hit the step on the way down. Doug woke him up (since Doogie was fast asleep through it all) and asked him if he was okay. Doogie said "yes" and promptly fell right back to sleep. Not too long after that Jaxon woke up crying (I think he was cold) so he ended up sleeping with me and CJ and I had Doug turn on the heater (love having a heater!) Doug than transferred Doogie from the floor to where Jaxon had been sleeping. Doogie doesn't remember any of this! The next morning Doogie's eye was all puffy and swollen. He didn't remember falling out of bed or Doug asking him if he was alright or moving to Jaxon's bed. We teased him and told him that a squirrel had broken into the tent trailer and beat him up...he really needs to stay away from those squirrels!

Anyways, we went for another hike that morning and after we ate lunch we packed up and headed back home. This time without any trailer swaying mishap!

I really thought that Doogie would have more of a shiner, the next day (Sunday) his eye was almost swollen shut but he didn't have any discoloration. Now it's just a little puffy and you really can't tell that anything even happened unless you are looking for it!