"Camping"

So we were going to go camping last weekend, but Lane was a little sick, so we decided to still "camp" from home. This turned out to be a great decision because we would have been caught in a huge storm!

After Steve got home from work on Friday we went canoeing on a lake by Steve's parents house. They have a permit to use the canoes there, so it was free! It was a really fun thing to do with the kids. They enjoyed it. and we all fit in one canoe. Lane was a little wary at first, but warmed up and soon I was worried she was going to fall over the edge because she kept trying to lean over and touch the water. Nash and Ava had fun paddling and we saw tons of dragonflies and lily pads.

We came home and cooked hot dogs on the grill and cut up a watermelon. We ate on our deck in our camping chairs.














Steve and the kids had set up the tent in our backyard while I got dinner going, so it was all ready to go with air mattress inflated and pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals . After we ate we were playing around in the tent when it started to rain.

Nash and I ran up to the deck and brought in all our food and chairs. And then it started to POUR! Crazy wind and hard rain. Our tent looked like it was going to blow away, but luckily the stakes held. After about 10 minutes Steve decided that it would be a good idea to go get the pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals because it looked more and more unlikely that we would be sleeping in the tent that night. Steve and Ava put on their swimsuits to prepare to brave the weather and rescue the things from the tent. Nash and I watched from the window (I had just put Lane to bed in her own crib). Literally, in seconds they were soaked! They ran to the tent. You could see them trying to hold it up against the wind while they were inside it. You could hear laughing and screaming and Nash and I just cracked up as we watched the whole escapade. But they were successful and came in very wet.



















Then we set up our blankets in the living room to camp out there. Actually Steve and I got to sleep in our own bed and Nash and Ava ended up on the couches.  Oh, but first we made smores over the kitchen stove and got all sticky from the marshmallows. The night wasn't as planned, but it was a lot of fun! And everyone slept in until 8:00 which definitely would not have happened in the great outdoors.

The next morning we bought fishing poles and fishing licenses and went fishing from a public pier at Lake Ryan. Ava caught a fish probably within 2 minutes of having her line in the water. No joke. It was her fist time to ever catch a fish. And luckily, Nash caught a fish, too, before we left. It was nice. Tricky to have Lane with us--she kept wanting to get in the water and we had to tie her pole to the pier because she threw it in the water on multiple occasions. :)





















So, all-in-all it was a great "campout."