Holding On To Summer

Even though the calendar says September, the weather still says August and quite frankly, my mind couldn't agree more. This last weekend the weather was nothing short of glorious and for that I am very thankful as Andy and I decided to squeeze in a camping trip before summer was "really" over! So off we went to Detroit Lake, nothing terribly difficult as far as camping goes since this really was the first time Andy and I had taken both kids camping by ourselves! In fact, Mason has never been "real" camping and we had meant to do it all summer and just never got around to it. Better late then never!

The whole trip went really well and the boys, of course, had a blast!!

So...some highlights.....

* Duck-1 ----- Matthew-0

Andy took the boys fishing. Mason was excited but being four years old, lost interest quickly. I was actually surprised at how patient Matthew was with the whole experience. Unfortunately, I had already left the dock with Mason when "the incident" happened. Apparently, a duck decided to attack the bobber on Matthew's fishing line. Matthew didn't like that at all and decided to 'chase' the duck (how exactly he was doing this I am not sure, this was Andy telling me the story!) In the process of trying to chase off the duck, Matthew fell into the lake! Luckily he was at a point where it wasn't deep at all and an older gentleman happened to be walking right by him and pulled him out of the water. Matthew was mad (and I am sure Andy couldn't keep a straight face at this point!) but the other men on the dock informed him that in order to be a fisherman he had to fall in the water at some point! :) He did calm down and actually stayed for awhile longer and fished in his soaking wet clothes.

* Both boys think smores are the greatest dessert on the planet!

* Mason loved washing dishes and I discovered this is quite possibly the best way to get their hands clean!

* The weather was beautiful during the day but it was cold at night!! Both kids need warmer sleeping bags...

*Our only mishap with our camping gear was that we didn't completely check for all the pieces of the new stuff we had just gotten. We had just bought a new coffee maker and didn't discover that it was missing it's little glass percolator thingy until we were actually up camping. You do realize how vitally important coffee is when camping??!! (we shall be making a little return to the store!!)

* Now that we have a little confidence in our own stuff and camping experience, we can't wait to book some trips for next summer!!!

* Oh and my kids thought that freeze dried ice cream sandwiches rocked!