Spencer Family Campout

I have been afraid of campouts with kids for some time now--since we had a fairly awful experience when Tommy was a baby--and have dreaded the moment that I always thought I would thrill at--going camping all together with older kids!  James and I decided we just had to dive in and do this thing, so this last weekend we did it!  We loaded the car to the HILT and headed out to Waterton for a weekend.  And driving back home, we decided it was TOTALLY worth the effort.  We had such a fun time.

Owen Island--a discovery of another day at Waterton

Tommy lost a tooth on the way to our camp!  This picture doesn't show it though--his lip is hiding it.

For our dinner we made tin foil dinners at home and cooked them in a little camp kitchen.  We got the whole place to ourselves.  It just aint camping without a fire, right?  We had to get a little creative because it wasn't an open fire, but it turned out great.  Only thing we burned was the dessert, which was kind of unfortunate.  The boys didn't seem too sad about it though.

After dinner we started playing kick the can (G calls it Kick the Candle) with all the boys.  George was so cute.  Once when I was in Jail, G came running and kicked the can.  He yelled, "Mom!  I saved your life!!"  Tommy did some amazing running/escaping from his bros, all the kids are extremely quick, and I even did a slide-tackle move by accident (was wearing the worst shoes) and got a grass stain.  James' sore tail bone got healed from the sprinting/ducking/weaving/hiding/leaping motions, and everyone was happy!

The three oldest boys slept in the two-man tent that James and I bought with some wedding money--11 years ago....  They did really great and weren't noisy at all.  We really wanted Owen to bond a bit with the older boys and I think that happened on this trip.  George was the last man standing in our tent as far as sleep went.  Tommy fell right asleep with a tooth under his pillow that had fallen out on the way there.  The tooth fairy did in fact remember him in Waterton and he was so thrilled!  George puttered around the tent back and forth for quite some time, and just as we were settling into bed some foreigners pulled up right across the little street from us and set up their tent and laughed and talked till about 1:30!  I had all sorts of nightmares of bears dragging children from tents into the river and me trying to fight them with mosquito repellent, flashlights, and sticks of firewood.  The night was eventful, to say the least!  In the morning the boys sat around in a little circle carving with their pocket knives.  That is a fun sight to see, for sure.  I was grateful for fully functioning bathrooms very nearby.  I guess I've become a wimpy camper in my old age!

In the morning, James and I took down the camp with a little help from our boys.  They tired of it though, so we said they could go down to where the river connects with the lake.  After about an hour, Will came back saying Ryrie had lost his flip flop--it sailed out to sea.  He was quite sad about it, and we experimented with another old flip flop we found down there to see where it might have traveled to.  None of us could find it, though Ry, Owen and James had a little adventure hike around part of the lake to find it.  

While they were gone, Tommy was "swimming" in a little pond off the big lake with some of his new friends.  Tommy got soaked (I should have brought him 4 extra sets of clothes instead of just 1 1/2) and had a great time.  George and I sat for about an hour by the water with our feet in, and George "changed" rocks for me.  Meaning he dipped them in the water to see how they magically transformed into beauties.  We enjoyed watching different boats come into the bay and we even saw some scuba divers out and about.  Well, mostly their bubbles. 

We took off for a drive up to Red Rock and stopped at one of our favorite picnic spots along the way--Lost Horse Creek.  G fell asleep on the way, so he got a little nap in the van while the rest of us ate lunch.  Then the boys went down to explore the creek.  We loved watching them make up a Lord of the Rings game on the spot.  James joined in and they started working their way up the creek.  By the time G woke up and ate his lunch and we went down to join in, they were all coming back excited to show us an awesome hike.  We went up the creek for about 45 minutes, crossing back and forth with James help and discovering the most amazing little gem of a hike ever!  I loved watching James' excitement most of all.

After that we headed back to the townsite for the traditional spray park/playground combo that always ends with ice cream.  We saw about 5 different families that we know at the spray park hangout.  They encouraged us to come to a family play, which we decided to do even though it would get us home late.  It was a fabulous weekend, and we really enjoyed being together.