In a Nutshell

This past weekend we changed up our usual beach camping scene (which I have yet to write about in this space) for some mountain and lake views.
It all started when we were catching up with friends and them mentioning they were heading out to Vail Lake in May and us realizing we had no other plans on that particular weekend and adding our own little entourage to the trip and we had a ourselves another memorable time in the outdoors.  This camping adventure will however go down as the very first one we have done in the rain!  One week before heading out we realized the weather forecast was showing rain for the first day of our four day trip.  Then it showed consistent rain for the first day and a half of our trip and well we went ahead with it anyway because ... why not?!?   And sure enough the weatherman was right.  It was a full day and half of on and off rain.
It led to some funny memories especially that first wet wet night with our little crew huddled around the fire pit after dinner as the rain poured down around us.  Then when bed time finally rolled around we realised the tent was in fact not at all waterproof and therefore we managed to sleep six people in our little cozy trailer that first night.

The kids were of course in wet/mud/dirt/pedaling bikes through puddles/singing in the rain kind of  heaven!

Behind our camp sites were some pretty awesome climbing hills which the kids were entertained by for hours and hours.   What goes up must come down of course and in this instance the coming down made for some pretty muddy bottoms.   I must say one of my favorite parts in this crazy parenting ride we are on is seeing our kids conquer things on their own and watching their faces light up as they realise they can do things that they were afraid off at first.  There was a nice group of kids on this trip and it was so awesome to watch them help each other and be so supportive of each other.  It's these little things (but kind of big in my mind) that make me smile.

I lost count how many time Owen yelled the words 'look at me momma' 'look what I did momma'.  Even if he cried a few hundred times in between those proud moments.  Oh my little independent/defiant little boy.

Or watching Isabel's face beam with pride as she made herself catch up with her new and old friends.

By four in the afternoon the second day the sun was shining and all was good and dry again!

We were at Vail Lake and we had to of course see the actual lake before we left and that we did on day 3 with a quick five minute car ride that brought us to some more amazing views and time to ponder how awesome life is and try our hands at some creative attempts at fishing (thank you Grammy).  

The chilly wind that afternoon had us back to our camp sites probably a little sooner than we had anticipated but it definitely had us saying 'we will back camping at this spot very soon'!