Camping

We survived our first camping trip as a family! Ben and I have never been camping together, and obviously this was the first time the boys had been camping. It was so fun! And exhausting. And cold. And super wet.

 We kind of decided to go last minute and planned the whole thing the week of. We don't own any camping gear, but we able to borrow most everything we needed from generous family and friends. I found a camp site online that is up Big Cottonwood Canyon that was still open, so we decided to try it out! As soon as Ben got home from work on Thursday we took off and headed to the mountains with two very excited boys!

 We got our camp set up pretty smoothly with only minor hiccups and explored the area a little. We were so pleasantly surprised that it was absolutely gorgeous! The canyon itself is just beautiful, especially during the fall. The campground had amazing views and our site bordered on this pretty little babbling brook. It was the best place to camp and we easily agreed we will for sure be going back!

 After a late dinner and s'mores around our campfire we decided to head to bed. The boys were so excited to sleep in a tent! We bundled them up nice and warm and got all settled in just as a serious rain storm hit! There wasn't any lightening close to us, but definitely elsewhere in the canyon and the thunder was so incredibly loud and echoed all over. The boys easily slipped off to dreamland and Ben and I laid awake most of the night listening to the storm.

 In the morning we had two happy and excited little boys hop in bed with us (on the comfort of an air mattress- the best way to do it in my mind- we may have been awake all night, but at least we were comfortable). The boys sleeping bags got soaked, and despite our best efforts our tent let in quite a bit of water. I told them stories while they snuggled with us until it got light.

 We surveyed just how wet our stuff was and determined we really shouldn't spend another night there with sopping wet equipment. Our original plan was to camp for two nights, and we would have loved to if the weather had cooperated. We spent a little time playing around the campsite in the morning, taking in the beauty all around us. Then our beautiful clear skies clouded up and storm #2 hit! By this point the forecast unfortunately showed thunderstorms for the rest of the day so we decided it was time to leave. We hurried and took down camp in the pouring rain and headed for home, with everything (including us) pretty wet and muddy.

 So it wasn't exactly as we had planned or hoped, but it was still a great time. The beauty of the canyon alone was worth it. As was the happiness from our boys. We deemed the camping trip a success and we are already excited to do more camping next summer.