Family Birthday

It's our Family's Birthday. Since we have just came back from our big trip (post to come) we decided to keep things simple. We wanted to go camping at one of the many campgrounds within 20-30 minutes from our home. I tried to make a reservation.  However, the lady on the phone (who is actually in New York) told me we have to stay for at least two days to make a reservation and have to make the reservation at least 3 days in advance. Since I was calling 2 days in advance and we were only staying for one day, I did not get a reservation. So we decided to try our luck with the "first come, first serve" sites. Needless to say,we drove around for four hours stopping at SEVERAL campgrounds only to find they were all FULL. On the bright side, we did find some really cool places we would like to come back to - with a reservation of course.

So we fell back to our back up plan - camping in the back yard. We were all really disappointed and decided to stop at one of the picnic spots in the canyon to roast our hot dogs for lunch. It was a good break. It gave the kids a chance to run around, cook over a fire, play in water, and get dirty.  Really, that's all of the highlights of a good camp out, right?

Our back yard camping turned out to be really fun. We didn't answer the door or phone and kept going inside to a bare minimum. Plus, we had clean bathrooms! We all slept outside, except Benjamin who got to sleep in his crib - which translates into a really great nap and nights sleep. And camping on grass is always nicer than camping on dirt. We cooked our foil dinners and roasted s'mores. We played games and made projects. Isaac insisted on putting up his own tent, but when night came, he decided he would rather sleep with everyone else. (Good move, since we had a lightening storm that night.)  I think we'd all say it was a great family birthday!