4th of July Camping Trip

I'm a little late on this post, but here's how we spent our Fourth of July. 

We took the kids camping at Grandpa's campsite at the Wilmington Sportsman's Club. The nice thing about this place is that it is only about an hour drive. Which was great, since we were pretty loaded down. (Hope we didn't need to see behind us!)

There was no room for Dee's crate, so she rode on my lap. Digging her 32 lb weight into my legs, which actually left bruises. So that was fun for me.

Then when we arrived, Dee flipped out at Dad's female dog, Daisy. She wouldn't let up, and we had to put her in the truck with the windows down for the afternoon and periodically take her out for walks/potty breaks on her leash. Luckily it was a mild day and we had shade.

Once the sun set, we broke out the s'mores. Notice Ben's are black. After watching Mike's technique, I figured out why. LOL. I taught Ben how to cook them above the fire so they are soft but not torched. :-)

I gave Liv very strict instructions about staying back from the fire. She always points to our oven and grill and asks me "hot, hot, mama?", so we talked about how the fire is hot, hot too, and she needs to stay back. She was very good about it and kept a very intentional wide berth when walking by it.

Honestly, she is a good listener and I trusted her not to do anything dumb or crazy. The reason for the wide berth is more her clumsiness. There were lots of sticks and things on the ground, and she tripped on them several times while we were there. So I was more afraid she'd trip and fall in if she happened to be walking a little too close for my comfort. As you can see, when the fire first started, she was very interested but took our discussion very seriously too.

Once her fascination wore off, she settled into Mike's chair (not her own; she wanted the big girl chair) to relax. It was past her bedtime at this point, and she was fading.

But Liv can always rally! (Oh, the hair, by the way.)

We put the kids in their jammies and broke out the smores! Liv loves the chocolate, Ben loves everything but. It works out nicely. :-) Here you can see Liv with chocolate smeared on her face--this was the aftermath of just one square of Hershey's.

Liv went to bed shortly after, but Ben held out a little longer. I left with Dee around 9, and Mike told me that Ben asked to go to bed 5 minutes later.

The next morning, I fed and walked Dee, then headed back to the campsite. It's about an hour drive but I missed the exit somehow and so it took me 1.5 hours. Sigh. I arrived around 10:30 to find Liv napping and Ben and Mike just returned from a fishing trip on a raft Dad had bought. They caught one fish and a huge one apparently got away, bending Mike's hook and causing big excitement for Ben!

When I stopped for gas and ice on my way down, I picked up slurpees for the kids (and myself--what?). Liv woke up from her very short nap right after I arrived, so we hung out while Mike and Ben fished a little longer.

This is one of my new favorite pics of Liv. That crazy hair, the smile, wearing her "poypal" bathing suit, sitting in a big chair instead of her kid chair, and holding onto that big drink--so Liv!

She's just so cute I could eat her up! Once the boys returned, we headed over to the camp ground's "beach" on the lake. It is a nice little area with clean sand and a nice gentle slope from shallow to deep and lifeguards on duty. Not that we let the kids out of our sight, but still...

I only got this one photo because honestly we were just having too good a time to take photos. Hands down, this was the best part of our weekend. The kids had a total blast and the four of us spent several hours together just splashing, building sand castles, and hanging out. It was fabulous. Liv LOVED being swung up in the air and then being dipped half way under the water. She was shivering and blue lipped and insisting she was "no cold, mama. more wawa." :-)

Around 3, we packed up and headed into town for ice, and then returned to the campsite. Ben and Liv went "exploring" for a bit.

And Glenn and Patti joined us for dinner and hung out for a few hours. They rode down on their Harley. The kids were intrigued. Glenn and Patti were kind enough to let them sit on it--check out Liv's face when Glenn turned it on. She wasn't expecting that!

Then Glenn offered to give rides. With no helmets, I was not loving this plan. But he just rode them around very slowly in the grass in a small circle around our site. I wasn't worried about Ben...

But Liv was another issue. I wasn't trusting her to hold on, so Patti kindly climbed on behind her and held onto her just in case. But there was nothing to worry about. Liv LOVED it. After her ride, she kept asking for more. :-)

After that, we had another fire, set of some small fireworks, and then packed up and headed home when it was the kids' bedtime. We couldn't spend another night since Dee was home by herself. And Mike wasn't too disappointed to be spending the night in our bed. :-)