Wonderful Wee Webbers: Camping Fun

Well, we did it. We finally took our first camping trip all by ourselves...just the Webbers. We have never camped without either my parents or Carey's parents before this summer! And guess what...we had a great time and managed everything all by ourselves; like real, live grown-up parents! I was a little nervous, mostly just about food/kitchen stuff. I've never had to be the one to remember the can opener and cutting board (forgot that one) before! It all worked out, though, and now we know we can do it:)

We didn't get off to a great start. I ran the Wharf To Wharf on Sunday morning and then came home and got the last few things ready to go. Carey and the kids got home from our church's worship gathering and we hit the road. We made it about 40 seconds before we had to turn around and go home! Carey is leading worship at a friend's church next weekend and had forgotten that he had to get the songs picked and emailed in before we left. So, he did that and about an hour later, we hit the road for the second time. We must have been leaving town at the same time as the other 15,000 people that ran Wharf To Wharf because it took us 35 minutes to get from our house to blue ball park (which is about 4 minutes away). We stopped there for our first bathroom break! From there the road was clear and we finally felt like we were on our way. Unfortunately, we weren't! We made it a little past the summit and were completely stopped in traffic. S-T-O-P-P-E-D. Like, not moving even a little bit. We started a Tinker Bell movie at that point and our kids watched the entire movie before we even made it to Lexington reservoir. So, what should have been a 3 1/2 hour trip turned into an almost 6 hour trip! Oh, and of the two movies that I grabbed for them to watch in the car, only one of the cases actually had a movie in it!

You might think we were all falling apart by the time we got there, but we really weren't (all glory to God)! Carey dealt nicely with the traffic (we kept saying we were so thankful we didn't have a screaming baby in the car) and the kids really hung in there! As soon as we got to our camp site our kids made friends and ran off to play and climb rocks, which left Carey and I free to set up camp. That felt extra glorious because trying to get set up and settled with the kids needing to be entertained or helped is usually the hardest part of camping for me. We had a great night, roasting marshmallows and watching bats fly and the stars come out.

The next morning we woke up ready for a fun day at the lake. We ate breakfast (why are camping pancakes so good?), packed up our snacks and floaties and headed out. As we pulled up to the beach, one of the kids pointed out a sign that said "no dogs beyond this point". What? No dogs on the beach? I had checked the website ahead of time to make sure we could take Banjo with us. I was kind of freaking out! Carey went over to the marina/store to ask if there was somewhere on the lake we could have our dog, and I started begging the Lord for ideas. I figured that maybe we could find someone with a smart phone and check Craigslist for a nearby dog-sitter or something. Turns out that dogs just have to stay off the main beach at the swimming area (which is a new rule that they really should update on their website). We found a great little spot off to the side of the marina and had a blast all day long. We did lots of swimming, floating, snacking and laughing. At one point, Seth and I got out of the lake and plopped down on a towel on the warm rocks/sand and Seth said "Ahhhh...now this is what camping is all about."

The next day we cleaned up camp and spent about an hour or so at the lake before heading home. Our trip home was wonderfully uneventful! We wish we could have stayed longer and can't wait to go back next year:)