Camping

I've recently been out where there is no internet, and no phone (unless you carry a cell phone). Just peace and quiet. The girls and I went camping at Big Arm State Park on Flathead Lake for four days last week, and it was one of the best camping trips I've ever been on.

Our new tent was fun and large...10x10. I purposely got a large one so we would have plenty of room in case we were forced inside due to inclement weather.

It was so fun and exciting. Like playing house, even for me. For some reason doing chores when you're camping is much more fun than doing the same chores at home. Why is that? Hmmm.

J is so funny. She sleeps like a turtle...head all tucked in the covers. The first night was really cold. We had to wear just about all the clothes we brought. The next night was just right and the third night was hot! We were sweating.

The days were awesome. Warm, sunny, beautiful. The kids went swimming as soon after they woke up each morning as possible and were hardly out of the water all day. The site we were at had it's own beach (as do most of the sites), so I could sit at the campfire and watch the kids playing in the water. Pretty nice spot.

This campground is a pretty cushy one. Especially the site we were in. We had the lake on one side of our site and on the other side, right across the camp road, were the bathrooms with showers! Yeah...pretty cushy. Great when you have kids though.

Everything about camping is cozy to me. I think I could live camp-style for quite awhile before I got tired of it and wanted civilization again.

And of course, you can't go camping without having a camp fire. This is the first year out of several in a row that campers have been able to have campfires this late in the season due to forest fire hazard and dry weather.

So every night we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores. Yummy and gooey.

The only problem with that is...it's so much fun to roast the marshmallows, and you can't possibly eat as many S'mores as you can roast marshmallows. Such a dilemma.

And I think the kids definitely wear more on their faces than they get into their tummies. But that's all a part of the fun of it too.

But my personal favorite camping treat is Oreos. When I was growing up we always took Oreos when we went camping. Dad and I would do Word Search puzzles and eat Oreos, trying not to get milk or cookies all over the book, while racing to see who could find the words faster. Oh that was fun!

The whole campground was so beautiful. I found so many wonderful things to photograph.

Even doing laundry in the woods is more fun. Imagine that!

Here is where I found K most of the time when she wasn't in the water. This tree was right at the corner of our site.

Time for breakfast. Starting with a nice hot cup of cocoa.

Eggs and bacon...

...and pancakes. It sure smelled good.

There's just something about camp cooking too. It just tastes better out here.

Then it's back into the water they go. The girls pretty much lived in their swim suits.

And I sat there on the beach and took pictures. And read a book.

And the kids played some more.

The last night we were there it was very windy and I suspected that it might rain, so we packed up everything that could get wet or blown away. We took some snacks and games into the tent and went to bed early.

The girls listened to their books on cd. I read my book. And we listened to the sound of rain drops on our tent all night. I love that sound.

We didn't want to leave, but we missed Daddy and there were things to do at home. Hopefully next year we'll be able to go camping more often.

I'll never forget this trip.