TNT: Camping at Willard Bay

This past weekend we went camping with three other friends and their families at Willard Bay.

Friday night we arrived around dinner time, ate and set up the tent.

Then we just hung out around the fire and visited.

It was a nice evening. Except for all the mosquitoes :(

Tom taught the kids how to play "Spot It" which was the hit game of the trip.

We loved our camp site. The picture doesn't do justice, but we were secluded from all the other camp grounds. It was just the four families, we had our own bathrooms (which were very nice for camping I might add), and our own beach a few yards from camp.

The kids were so excited to sleep in the tent that they kept begging to go to bed. However, once they were in bed it took them over an hour to settle down and fall asleep.

We took the top part of Sophie's stroller for her bed. It worked out really good.

I used the shade canopy and a jacket to keep it dark for her.

The first night I hardly slept at all. Between the Front Runner train that would blow its horn every hour or so, the wind blowing our tent all night, birds singing songs at 5am that sounded very similar to an alarm clock buzz that doesn't have an off button, and the kids getting up once or twice during the night it was not easy to sleep. However, when camping, that is the one time I'm a morning person. I never expect to sleep well, because I usually don't. And as usual, Tom was the last one up in our tent (both mornings). Sophie did okay. She didn't get up until almost 7am. Lily and Jeff were up before 6am, but they were good to just play our IPods quietly.

We then got up and had breakfast. It was a beautiful day.

Sophie was ready in her cute sun hat.

The kids couldn't wait to get on the boat. This was their first time boating.

We had two boat between the four families. They came right up to our private beach to load us all in.

I got to try out my new swim suit. It used to be my moms, but was perfect for the occasion.

Sophie did NOT like her life jacket. Plus she was sooo tired too.

The other kids loved the boat!

Sophie finally fell asleep, but it was hard to keep her asleep in the wind. The life jacket made her so heavy too. I was trying to keep her covered from the wind and sun. Luckily the boat movement helped her fall back asleep after the wind woke her up once and I moved to the inner part of the boat, which was better for both of us.

The boys liked the back of the boat too. It was fun to watch the wake and waves. Here's Tom with his buddy, Jeremy.

Tom was brave enough to do the wake board. The water temperature was in the high 60's and the weather was high 80's. Not too bad for mid June!

Tom did a great job on the wake board. Although he did take a pretty hard fall at one point.

We also tried to get the kids to knee board. None of ours did, but Cedric and Jeff were brave enough to just jump in a swim for a short bit.

After a few hours out, we headed back to camp for lunch. I really wanted Sophie to take a good nap, so I stayed back with her while Tom and the other dads took the kids out on the big tube. This was the highlight for our kids.

Unfortunately Sophie only napped for an hour (which meant so did I). We spent the rest of the time on the little beach visiting with some of the other moms.

We saw all sorts of animals at our camp; bugs, birds that would come right up to our table, dogs (with owners of course), rabbits, a raccoon and even a few snakes.

That night we had dinner. Tom and I were in charge of that meal and did taco salad and watermelon. Cedric was the watermelon king. He probably ate half the watermelon himself.

Nothing says camping more than dirty, sticky kids. Here's Cedric (or Humungousaur as he called himself the whole weekend).

After dinner it was time to roast marshmallows.

It wouldn't be camping without marshmallows and smores! (Lily wore sunglasses to keep the smoke out of her eyes.)

The babies had fun playing on the blanket.

Sophie's 14 month old friend, Hailey kept trying to put her binky in her mouth. I think she tried feeding her a marshmallow at one point too :)

It was such a beautiful evening!

That night the kids were asleep within minutes and I actually slept a lot better too. However, morning came early for some of us when Sophie, Cedric and Lily were all up by 6am. I just took Sophie out and watched shows on my IPod while Cedric collected rocks and bugs, and Lily stayed in the tent reading her book.

Sunday we got up, packed up and went home. We had an enjoyable Father's Day (despite all the work it takes to undo camping). We spent that night with family.

Yesterday, Sophie slept almost the whole day re-cooping from the camping trip. Which was nice since I had so much laundry and stuff to do.

And Lily won for coming home with the most mosquito bites. They loved her sweet face and legs.