the bunch: over the river & through the woods

Joey and I had talked about taking the kids somewhere for spring break for a couple of months but just couldn't come up with any plans until all of the kid scheduling was finalized. So, at the last minute, (the day before), we made tent site reservations at an RV park in Glen Rose. We enjoyed my birthday weekend there and knew that the kids would definitely enjoy the area.

It was my kids first camping trip and I hadn't been in 14 years (I had to take camping to get the two P.E. credits that I needed to graduate from college.) I am just not an "outdoorsy/roughin' it" kind of girl, or at least I didn't think I was. Spending weekends at the deer lease was a good start to making me come around and try new things. I enjoyed those weekends and I truly enjoyed this weekend. And, I have to say, I look forward to more camping trips - next time we hope to go beach camping. I think yes.

We loaded the truck up Sanford and Son style on Friday night and headed out around 8:00. (Please note that Joey wanted to leave around 6 ... Joey time is always the hour plus two.) We made it to Glen Rose just before 10:00, backed the truck in, unloaded, set up tents and about 11:00 we were airing up air mattresses. As if the kids running around playing wasn't enough to make the neighbors angry, this process brought them and their dog out of the tent. They sat around in their chairs, giving up on sleep at this point. Everything was finally calm and we were settled into our tents by midnight. It was a sleepless night - my feet felt like they were buried in an ice chest, had to pee all night until we finally got up around 3:45 and went. It was then that Joey turned on the heater and we fell fast asleep until the birds started singing at 6:45 on Saturday morning. I guess camping is not the kind of vacation that you go on in order to get some rest.

Here we are on Saturday morning: cooking breakfast and the kids playing.

We spent the first half of the day at Big Rocks park where we journeyed a mile down the river - through slime, rocks and grossness. I made it safely there and back with my camera and my phone. Lisa, not so much. She slipped and her and her iPhone4 went into the river. (It started working again the next day, thankfully.) The kids played in the water, tried to catch fish, explored and had such a good time.

Saturday afternoon we made sandwiches for lunch and headed to Dinosaur Valley State Park to spend the rest of the day. The girls took off one way and the boys another. We eventually got everyone together and decided to take a hike up the "mountain". The injury report for this would include: Ashlyn - stickers in the foot (twice), scraped up knee; Trey - stickers in both feet; Kayla - a huge blister and a cut on the bottom of her foot. The hike was slow going at times, until we finally convinced all of the kids to stay on the main trail. It was quite a journey but had some great scenery along the way.