First Camping Trip / First Caught Fish

In the middle of April, Justin's family all went on a camping trip to Moab. But we didn't go. Since Justin started a new job he's only got a few family vacation days, and we wanted to save them for the big trips during the summer. And he had to leave on that business trip the morning after we would have gotten back, so we opted to stay home. But we were bummed about that.

While we were eating dinner one night while everyone was in Moab, we starting thinking about how we could fit in a little camping trip. We realized that Justin was flying home on Thursday, and since he worked over a weekend he could take stay home our family until Monday! We called up his parents to see if they wanted to go camping the first weekend in May up to the Hot Springs Camperworld.

I'm so glad we planned it ahead of time, because although it was a lot of work to get everything together (by myself, because Justin was gone) it was a much needed weekend of relaxation after a stressful 10 days for the both of us.

We got everything all unloaded and set up. Harvey was his heaven "helping" his dad set up the tent.. and Avery was content just to hang out and play on the blanket while we got everything together.

Once we had finished, and eaten dinner, the boys went fishing...

while the girls headed to the (nice and hot) swimming pool. I snapped a few shots of Avery in her swimming suit before we got in... but no pictures after that!!

Avery was in heaven in that warm pool. It was her first time swimming (although I wasn't surprised she liked it... she loves taking baths). It was a little chilly out, but since the water was nice and warm it was heavenly. Until the wind picked up... and all of a sudden the weather changed for the worst. It started raining, and the wind was freezing cold, so we decided to get out. By the time we came out of the dressing room it had turned into a major windstorm.

We drove back to camp (although it was a short walk, we were so glad we brought the car!) and I saw the tent was collapsed. I thought the windstorm had broken the poles or something, but the boys were in the trailer and Justin told me he had just taken it down as a precaution. We tried to "wait it out", but that wind never stopped. All night. There were a couple of times during the night we woke up thinking the trailer might tip over from all the wind!

When got up, Justin set to work getting all of the water out of the tent. It was quite the job!

Then the boys went fishing again. This time Harvey caught 2 fish with his little pole!! The first one was "too small." I know he was excited to catch his first fish, but he kept saying it was small. I'm not sure what he was thinking at this point...

After Justin threw them back, Harvey kept saying, "I want a big, big, big, BIG (like 20 times) one this time!"

And he got his wish... the next one he pulled in was big.

 

He couldn't take his eyes off that thing.

And I couldn't take my eyes off this guy... It was so great to snuggle him up for the weekend after being apart for so long! (I don't know how people do this travel gig all the time. It's so hard for me!)

Avery couldn't fall asleep for her morning nap in the trailer, so I took her for a little drive. After strapping her into her carseat, she was asleep in about 30 seconds. I drove for about 5 minutes, and then just rolled down the windows a bit and let her snooze in the car. We kept checking on her... but she crashed for like 2 hours!

When she woke up she was perfectly happy with all the attention from grandparents...

...and from Mommy.

We spent the rest of our weekend golfing, fishing some more, swimming some more, and just relaxing and relishing the fact that we didn't have to do anything.

Then I got sick. Hit with the flu or something terrible. I was exhausted. (Good thing I had nothing to do!) So we headed home and I slept for the next week.