We Went Camping!!!

We did it. We finally went camping. Horray. Almost 5 years of bugging him and we finally went. He chose the place - Wolf Lake, Alberta. We picked the time - May Long Weekend. I packed the food & equipment. Hannah brought the entertainment - herself. :)

It started out promising...Daddy driving...smiling...

Hannah packed in the car being entertained by her Ipod (well, Daddy's Ipod)
We got to our campsite, pitched a tent and Daddy started chopping wood.
Then the mosquitos came...They were the size of California Condors, and they were swarming. We hid out in the tent. Hannah played with the lantern while Daddy & I seriously contemplated packing up and leaving just hours after we arrived. Instead, we decided to sleep on it and see what the morning would bring.


Pancakes!!! And lots of them. In all different shades of "doneness" - light, medium and "the ones that only Mommy will eat". (Give me a break, it is a new Coleman stove, and I was using it for the first time!)

But they ate them like good kids.

Hannah ate almost 2.5 pancakes, and cleaned her plate! Please note the cute little coffee cup that Daddy bought for Hannah & future siblings (He bought 4 cups...I wonder how many children he really thinks he is going to have. As far as I am concerned, I'm having only 2)

After breakfast, I sent Hannah and Daddy on a walk so I could clean up the Pancake mess. This was so cute, I had to snap a picture.

Then they came back and we had some fun around camp before heading to the lake. Hannah danced on her tree stump for the camera. We sang "Hannah on a stump...Hannah on a stump...Hannah on a stump..." and she would do her "Hannah Dance" (remind me to figure out how to upload a video to this blog. You have to see her dance to understand the song)

Then Hannah demonstrated the fine art of gracefully exiting a tent.

And she even showed us how a pirate goes camping...



After the pirate fun, it was time to head to the lake and find the "beach" that was in the campground description. The beach that caught Daddy's attention when he was choosing a place to go camping...

Little did we know that the "beach" was a man-made boat launch with gravel...no sand. It didn't seem to matter to Hannah. She had fun anyways.

And Daddy? Well, he fished off of the floating pier.

Hannah did well at staying away from the water until a 6 year old boy was thrown off the pier by his father. Then water play was fair game. She went waist deep into freezing cold water. How cold? Well, let me put it to you this way. In the middle of May, there was still some snow around the banks of the lake. Ya...cold. Mommy was a trooper though, and got into the water with Hannah for a picture.

After play time at the beach, and unsuccessful fishing, it was time for a nap.

Mommy took some much needed time to snap a few pictures around camp. First of our dirty "new" Jeep Patriot...It was "Jeep's" first time camping too.

Then of the sky, a view from my camping chair. Ahhhh....now this is what camping is all about...
Then of the marshmallow monsters, preparing their after dinner faire.
Look! A two fisted Marshmallow roaster!
What I can't show you pictures of are the rowdy campers that were a few sites away. They partied until about 3am, playing their music loud and boozing it up. One of them even stumbled into our site at about 3am, and was only feet away from our tent when Michael yelled "Get Out Of Here!" and proceeded to race out of the tent to check him out. Michael didn't return to the tent for a few minutes, opting to stand guard while Hannah slept, and I held on to her. I couldn't believe how rude these campers were. Finally, after all was quiet, Michael returned to the tent. We had visions of having another fun day playing at the lake, when...it started to rain. It rained off and on all night, and into the morning. At 7am, the rain let up and we decided to pack it up and head home.

It was a short camping trip, but one full of highlights. We look forward to going camping again sometime soon.