Soldier Creek Camping Trip- 2008

OK- I know I am a week behind in most of these big posts. Sorry! I will try to catch up in my spare time today- so be ready for a few posts with A LOT of pictures!

Last weekend was the Wallace family camp out up at Soldier Creek. We decided very last minute that we were going to join all the Wallaces for this year's Soldier Creek excursion. Sara was our main reason for not wanting to go this year, and we pretty much told everyone to not expect us at all. I think I even told my Aunt Carrie the day before that we were not going. I had never been camping with such a young baby and wasn't really sure how she would take the cold at night. We also figured that since Ross took so much time off of work while his family was here that we would have to skip the camp-out so he could catch up. Well, on Thursday morning two of his appointments cancelled, and the third one had been pretty flakey the previous two times they had tried to meet- so we (Ross mostly) decided to pack it all up and we headed out.

Emma was in such a funny mood in the car! Here she is playing peek-a-boo with Daddy's hat.

The flies were really bad this year for some reason, which necessitated the lighting of the citronella candles. This meant that poor Jay got to spend most of the time in his time-out chair. :) He is allergic to citronella, and it made him totally miserable until the sun went down and the flies went away.

Sara was a pretty good sport and spent a lot of her time in her pack 'n play (which is also her crib- we are too cheap to get her a real crib! Emma used the same pack 'n play for 16 months until she upgraded to a twin bed that my mom gave us. My goodness, we have been in these parenthesis so long that I actually forgot all about them!).

This is Garrett- and this is pretty much what he looked like the entire time. He is such a busy little guy, and he LOVES to be dirty. My uncle Allen nick-named him Pig Pen (you know- from Charlie Brown). This started a fun game where we decided who everyone else was from the Peanuts gang. Jessica was Sally, Carrie was Lucy, Heather was Marcie, Dana was Peppermint Patty, Aaron was Schroeder, Spencer was Snoopy, I was the litttle red headed girl, Corbin was Linus, my mom was the teacher (Mwah mwah mwa mwaah), Annika was Lucy- it was an amusing game. I was also happy to see that there are some people who know just as much about Charlie Brown as I do. I thought Peanuts was a dying pleasure- so I was happy to see that the enjoyment of it is alive and well.

Here is my uncle Allen. I wonder what he is thinking so deeply about. . . This is a wonderful game called horse-balls. It is distantly related to horseshoes. Spencer was entertaining the kids by telling them it was a time machine. He had them do all sorts of silly things and kept them busy long enough for Eve to get her dinner cooked and ready.

Emma does not like to take naps- but she is even more stubborn about it when there are fun things (like camping) going on. This meant that by the end of the day she was getting pretty tired and extremely obnoxious. Caulene won the trophy for Favorite Sister of the Day by getting her to sleep. She woke up about 20 minutes later, but she was much happier, so mission accomplished.

My mom and sisters also got the pleasure of having Emma sleep in their GIANT tent. It was nice not having to worry about her, and they said she slept pretty well too. I was a little sad that she didn't even want to say goodnight though. Unfortunately we didn't have the same luck with Sara. She was cold and she ended up in our sleeping bag in my arms (Ross was far too passed out to help very much- his seizure medication does that to him) so I woke up (if I ever really slept) with an extremely sore shoulder. That pinched nerve was just killing me! We decided that since Saturday would mostly consist of packing up and driving home that we would just leave late on Friday night and sleep in our own bed.

This is the hairspray my aunt Lara uses on my cousins. "Help yourself to the Mane and Tail, but don't even think about touching the Verticolli!" Grandpa Wallace took us out on his boat for a bumpy and windy ride. We had a lot of fun! Jay even got in the water and did some water skiing. We were impressed because the water was really cold and very choppy.

Grandpa even let Emma drive.

Just like last year, the boat put Emma right to sleep.

We spent the rest of the day eating (lots of eating happens at these camping trips) and playing games. Pit, Charoodles, and Scattergories were the most popular this year. I also thoroughly enjoyed the fire. That is always my favorite part. We had marshmallows and smores and starburst, and we enjoyed some great conversation. When the fire started to die down and people were heading to bed, we hopped in the car (which Ross packed up all by himself- thanks Babe!) and headed home.