My Idea of Camping...

has always been to go to the Marriott.

My husband was a boy scout throughout his high school years. He and his brother camped many, many weekends with their scout troops. They camped way out in the woods.

I, on the other hand, have been camping only a handful of times and I did NOT like it at all.

So, I've told him down through the years that if he wanted to take the kids camping that's fine but I will go "camping" at the Marriott while he camps in the woods.

That was until dear husband started looking at campgrounds. I wasn't really thrilled about camping at first, but as the time drew closer, I found that I was actually excited. I learned that you must be prepared to have a good camping experience. So...we prepared.

And we had a great time! We want to make camping a monthly 'habit' as much as we possibly can.

When we got there, we immediately set up camp. We (I should say Walter) set up the tent in a nice grassy area. We got everything out of the van and organized it all.

While the tent was being set up the boys were playing in the trees and having a great time.

The boys were headed to a trash can to throw something away. Phyllip approached the can and when he got close to it, he accidentally scared a squirrel. The funny thing about it was he screamed, Tyler screamed, and the squirrel screamed in unison. I happened to look up right at that moment and saw the whole thing! Hilarious! The squirrel was huge and he scampered off immediately. The boys were laughing as was I! I only wish I had gotten it on video - maybe I could have won some money for that one!

After the tent was done and lunch was finished, the boys went fishing.

Tyler caught a fish.
Both boys caught a fish, but we didn't get a picture of Phyllip's fish.

Shortly after the fishing was done, I noticed the sprinklers were getting very close to our campsite. I commented to Walter that I hoped they didn't turn on by us because everything would get wet. He dismissed the idea. Not 5 minutes later...you guessed it! Water water everywhere...all over our stuff!

Walter was upset! We called the ranger and asked them to turn the water off so we could move our things. The tent was wet - inside and out. Sleeping bags and pillows were wet. Ugh!

So, we went from here...

to here...

and had no more problems after that! Goofy thing was that nobody told us we weren't supposed to camp on the grass. There weren't signs, either - that was until the ranger pointed it out. The sign was facing a different direction from where campers would look and if that wasn't bad enough it was covered up by a tree branch. Go figure that one!

We enjoyed the rest of the day. We had dinner and at dusk started a campfire. We roasted marshmallows and made smores.

Next morning, there was a hawk in the trees above us. I got a picture of it.

We even found the hawk's nest. Apparently, there were 4 babies in it.

More tree climbing happened that morning.

Last but not least, our little dog had a great time. We were supposed to have her on a leash the whole time. Easier said than done because she HATES the leash! She's very good off the leash but...rules are rules! We were the only tent campers and had the entire area to ourselves so we felt some liberty to keep her off the leash at times. She loved chasing all the squirrels and us as well.

We played hide and seek and Ruby thought she needed to play, too. She gave every one of us away every time!

Her favorite person in the family is Walter. She follows him around like his shadow. Hence the following picture. It's like this every single day.

Technically, she was on a leash. We just weren't holding it!

Ruby never slept until we went to bed that night. She was on alert and didn't want to miss a thing! She was so tired when we left that she slept on the way home. She moved very slowly the rest of the day after we got home.

Such a tired face!