Our First Family Camping Trip

We haven't been camping since we've had kids. There has always been someone too little, so we've grown accustomed to backyard camping.  Well this year was a little different.  Mitch's Dad and new Stepmom (Joe and Maria) live in Mexico and were visiting the States, so a few weeks ago we had our first family camping trip. I wasn't really thrilled about going.  Jenna and Owen are still little.  Jenna doesn't sleep through the night as it is, and Owen is still in a crib.  Getting him to just lay down anywhere and go to sleep is not an easy task.  Also, I wasn't really excited to see the melt-downs of cranky kids because of lack of sleep and cranky adults because of stubborn power struggles. However, Mitch rarely sees his Dad or brother, so the camping trip was on.  It went A LOT better than I expected.
Mitch's brother (Anthony) has a boat and an RV parked at Echo Reservoir so that's where we camped.  The kids had so much fun!  The adults went with the flow a lot better than I expected, as well.  Jaxton and Kayla stayed in a tent with some of their cousins and Anthony attempted to sleep with Jenna and his daughter (Stella), while Mitch and I slept in the back of the Tahoe with Owen.  All was going pretty well until Anthony gave back Jenna.  We tried to warn him that she was not a good sleeper.  After about an hour into bedtime, he realized we were right.  Needless to say, Mitch, Owen, and I didn't get a good night's sleep AT ALL.  We tweaked the sleeping arrangements on the next night and it seemed to work out a little better.  The big kids slept great in the tent and I was so happy!  We had lots of thunderstorms while we were there and I thought for sure that it would make for some scared kids, but it didn't even phase them.  All of the cousins quickly became good friends and Jenna could've just rode on the boat forever.  She fell in love with it.  It was a lot of work with the little ones and I still think that they are too little, but it went so much better than I expected and the kids had so much fun.  At least now we know it can be done.


While we were there, we celebrated Joey's birthday.  He turned 10!

Jenna's so cute being all wrapped up cuddly warm!

The big kids are in the tent and ready for bed!

Jaxton and his cousins, Joey and Alex

Jaxton had fun fishing

Jaxton sure didn't mind relaxing on the boat

Joey is an expert at being pulled behind the boat.  Kayla had so much fun doing this with him!

    

Owen hated his life jacket.  I was able to catch a quick pic of him smiling before the whining started.  He's blinking but it's all I've got.

 

The kid's found this swing close-by, hanging from a tree.  They couldn't get enough of it.

Grandma and Grandpa Scorsone are getting a kick out of Owen waving at the camera.  Waving is one of his favorite things and it is so cute.  He is very passionate about his waving.  

We were stuck inside during one of the rainstorms.  Stella and Kayla are enjoying making some jewelry.

Jenna hates loud noises more than anything.  For some reason when she is afraid of anything, she must think that a loud noise will follow, because she always covers her ears... even if there is no noise.  In this particular instance, she was afraid of being in that tube... so of course, the natural thing to do would be to cover her ears.  Funny kid!

Jaxton and Joey made up a handshake and they thought it was hilarious that it ended with them pointing at their butts.  Jaxton was in heaven with another boy to be obnoxious with.

A trip with kids is not complete without at least one meltdown.  Owen was super mad that his sleeves came unrolled and were too long... and then Jenna touched him.  She was trying to pet his head to make him feel better, but he just went into a downward spiral from there.

 

 

All in all, it was a good trip!