Camping Under The Full Moon

We are back in town now after such a great camping weekend. In all of our years of camping, this weekend had the most perfect, beautiful weather, and we had great campsite, and we had the best time with our biggest girl! (This photo was this morning, Sunday, but I wanted it to show up first… but let’s jump back to Friday…)

FRIDAY

We took the girls to school for a half day so we could have some time to get all of our camping things packed and loaded by ourselves…

And we saw the triplets while at drop-off as well, and they were so very excited to see us.

We picked up both girls, grabbed lunch, and then while Jeff and Emmie finished packing up after lunch, I took Addie to the doctor one more time…

Turns out, poor girl had developed an ear infection since our last visit on Wednesday. But we picked up her antibiotics and dropped her off with Grammy, so she could stay with them while we went camping.

Because of the doctor’s visit, and a few other things, we got on the road much later than we wanted (by about 3 hours…), but Emmie took a little nap in the car (and I might have as well? I don’t remember…).

We stopped by the Chiefland Walmart for our grocery pick-up order, then since it was too late to try to cook at the campsite, we went through the Ralph’s drive-thru for burgers and onion rings, which had been recommended to us by some church friends. We ate super fast, and then set up our campsite in the dark, by the light of the full moon and the truck lights, with these friends watching over us for a while!

It was 9:50pm by the time we finally got everything set up, and then 10:30pm by the time we got Emmie into bed. She was such a good helper, and such a little trooper, but poor thing was pooped! And she fell asleep instantly!

But the full moon out both nights was so bright and beautiful!

SATURDAY

We got to “sleep in” until 7:15 on Saturday morning, and then got busy working on the fire and making breakfast. It took about a hundred years, but our simple eggs, bacon & toast all in the cast iron skillet was all so yummy!

After breakfast, we took a walk down to the springs (oh, since I haven’t mentioned it yet, we were camping at Manatee Springs State Park in Chiefland, Florida), to take a little walk and see all the fun things. There was actually a research team there camping out at the park too, doing all sorts of turtle research and stuff. And Emmie got to “pet” one!

Oh, girlfriend packed all of her own clothes, and picked out her outfits, and was very proud of herself 🙂

Five years ago, Jeff and I camped at this same park for our 4th wedding anniversary, and we have a picture in this same spot. The funny part is, I was just a couple weeks pregnant with Emerson at the time, but didn’t even know it yet. It was special to end up back here, kind of on accident even!

After lots of walking and lots of playground time, we went back to our campsite for tuna sandwiches for lunch, and some quiet rest time in the tent. She claimed she wasn’t tired, but it wasn’t too long before she fell asleep next to me. I dozed for about 30 minutes myself, and then I just read next to her.

By the time we had our late breakfast and late lunch, once we woke up from our late nap, it was pretty much time to start up the fire and get busy on dinner. We made chicken, potato & veggie foil packs (which is one of our very favorite camping dinners), and these turned out just as good as ever.

She loved helping with every little thing around the camp, even dishes.

And she had her own little flashlight, and she loved helping Daddy monitor the foil packs for dinner.

And then of course we had to finish up our last camping night with s’mores!

Emmie wanted to play on her Kindle in the tent, so Jeff and I got some time to hang out together just playing cards and listening to music and chatting with each other, which is how we always spent our time camping back when it was always just us two.

Emmie emerged to play a round with each of us, and of course have another snack, and then she was back in the tent.

SUNDAY

We were up a bit earlier today than yesterday, around 6-ish am. We had a quick breakfast in the tent (no cooking today), and then had to start packing up and cleaning up. The break-down process is quicker than the set-up, but it’s still a lot of work. Emmie was such a big helper again, and was just running around doing anything  and everything that we asked of her.

We got everything packed up, dumped all our trash, and then showered and changed before checking out of the campground. We stopped at Bar-B-Q Bill’s for lunch before leaving town, and I was SO excited to see a salad bar for the first time in almost two years! I miss the Sonny’s salad bar, and this was very similar, and it was delicious.

We had an easy drive back home, where Emmie and I both snoozed in the truck for a little while…

We got back to town around 3:15, unloaded everything at our house, then took the truck back to Jeff’s dad (thanks for letting us borrow it Dave!), and pick up Pretzel. Then we headed out to my parents house to get Addie-girl, and we took them pizza for dinner as just a small thank-you for taking care of her.

These girls were so excited to see each other, and they were very sweet together, as always.

We got back home just in time to get Emerson in bed, and then we took care of getting Addison another bottle and getting her ready for sleep.

Our friends Britteny, Stephen and their daughter Elly (Emmie’s friend), were supposed to come with us, but had car troubles at the last minute and ended up having to stay home. This would have been their first camping trip, so we were all sad that it didn’t work out. But like I said, the weather was absolutely perfect this weekend, and it was so good to get out of town and out in nature and spend so much special time with Emerson. She’s the best big sister to Addie, but I know she needed this time with us just by herself. And it was good for US to get this special time with just her!

Today was a long, tiring day, so I’m definitely heading off to bed early. Thankfully, it’s a short week, followed by a nice long holiday weekend, with lots of family time!