Family of 5 - will camp!

We ventured to the mountains a couple weekends ago for our first family camping trip in over 3 years.  Last time we went, it was just Ben & I, with sweet little 16 month old Jackson & Bella.  Now, it was Ben & I and our 3 sons, and poor Bella got left at home.

Let me just say that we had a blast.  The weather was gorgeous, the campsite was perfect and the kids were really good sports.  No one got hurt, no one got poison ivy and the kids slept really well both nights.  Not much more that we could ask for!

After spending the better half of the day loading up the truck, we headed up to Table Rock State Park with what looked like a month's worth of crap.  {The only thing that took longer than loading up all that gear and unloading it}  

The kids had the best time jumping from air mattress to air mattress in the "back room" of our tent.  The "front room" served as a mudroom to house all of our bags, shoes, diaper stash, etc.  3 kids sure do require quite a bit of stuff.  And they loved the campfire treats :)

The real highlight of the trip was the mega-swing that Ben & Kyle constructed.  Reliving their childhood, they managed to rig up our air-chair into a pretty amazing swing.  The highlight was definitely when we were packing up and they couldn't get the rope down from the tree....so Ben decided to scale the tree like a koala bear.  Here's proof:

Saturday we hung out at the state park, the guys fished while Abby & I let the kids play on the shore of the lake & at the playground.  We ended our afternoon with a paddle boat outing, which I throughly enjoyed, considering I sat on the back while Ben got to paddle our little crew around the lake.  Despite his complaining, I think he had fun too :)

We spent the rest of the weekend eating, exploring and entertaining.  These kiddos do so well together and that makes it so much easier for us to enjoy our weekend!  We can't wait to go back in the Spring!