Camping!

Her favorite chair

Ethan really liked using the ax, it was a pretty dull one, but made me a little nervous!

Katelyn's deciding if she needs to go "that bad". Stinky bathrooms!

Dan finally had a weekend off, so we decided to take the gang camping. We have been wanting to go all summer long, but thought we should wait until Alyssa started walking. Who knew she would take her sweet time with that! We surprised the kids and set off for Mt Lemmon. (A lot later than we wanted to, isn't that the way it always goes?)
We got to our favorite camp site just as the sun was setting. Which by the way, we were amazed at how much they charge now for a one night camp site. I said for that kind of money, they should have valet parking and put up your tent for you! Anyway, we unloaded and cooked dinner,

(hot dogs what else?) Katelyn took forever to roast her hot dog, she was afraid it would get black things on it, (burned) and so she held it mostly outside of the fire pit. As we were eating, Katelyn started to cry, well, wail. She was so upset. Upon investigation, we realized that she was upset by the uninvited guests (bugs, flies and moths) that we had at dinner. Okay, her being afraid of the moths were my fault, the week before I was in the kids bathroom getting a hair tie for one of the girls. A moth flew out at me and startled me. I screamed and did the "bug dance" that I learned from my mother. For the rest of the week, Katelyn would not go down the hallway without an escort. So back to camping, she was very upset by the moth intrusion. So we told her to go sit by the fire, because they would not get her there.

All's well that ends well.

So after dinner, we set out to put up the tent. By now, it is dark. Note to self, Alyssa is terrified of the dark. So when Dan needed my help, (soooo sad) Alyssa sat on the ground sobbing Mom! Mom! So heartbreaking. When we got in the tent, she is still crying, nigh night! Nigh Night! And was pointing outside. (when Ethan was a baby he couldn't say good night, so he said nigh night, it stuck, so everyone says it) So I took that as, I want to go home and go to bed in my crib! I have to say, that now that she is getting older I don't get to hold her very often. So that night was kind of nice, because she held on to me and would not let me put her down. It was also kind of nice, because Dan had to do all of the work Haha. Just kidding Dan.

The good news was that the kids were so tired that they slept all night and even though it was a little colder than we are used to, it was a great night. Alyssa even slept all night. And they even slept in! Not long enough though, and I told them when they woke us up that the sun comes up faster in the mountains and it was still the middle of the night and to go back to sleep. No, they did not buy it, but it was a nice try.
Zach was the first one awake and we heard him say in his deep sleepy Zach voice, Ethan wake up, it's morning. Then (Ethan was buried deep in his sleeping bag because it was so cold) Katelyn! Wake up! Ethan's gone!!! He was so worried he lost Ethan.

We had a fun time, and wondered why we don't go more often. Although, Alyssa still hates the tent, she refused to go in it, even in the day time. :) The boys were in their element. While Dan and Ethan were taking down the tent, Zach started to throw pine cones. I looked up just in time for him to hit a tree with a pine cone and it bounced back and almost hit him in the head. He said, Cool! Too much fun. But it went by way too fast.

So a bag of marshmallows later, we headed back for home and reality.

Quote of the day...
So this morning (Sunday) the boys were playing with their light sabers (sabors?wow who knew sabers were in the spell checker... up until I married Dan I thought they were savors) anyway, I said, hey, it's Sunday. We don't play Star Wars on Sunday. Ethan said "It's not real Star Wars mom, it's Sunday Star Wars, we're not really hitting each other." Oh really.

Speaking of quotes, so many times the kids say stuff that make us laugh so hard, and I always intend on writing it down. Intend being the key word. So for anyone who cares, here are some of the quotes from the kids...

When we were talking about the new baby, Katelyn said "is he going to be here this week?" Ethan said, "No, Katelyn. February is when mom's gonna burp the baby out."

Oh, if it were only that easy.

Zach hit a little boy at preschool on second or third day. So on the way home we were talking about hitting. I said in my best concerned mother voice, "Zach when you hit at preschool, it makes Ms. Dana really sad." He said, "no mom, it makes her really mad!" Well, at least he gets it. :)