Last weekend, we took the older boys camping overnight for the 2nd time. Unlike back in October, it was nice and warm. The theme of the weekend was "Wild Wacky Water" which meant that we brought squirt guns, buckets, our garden hose and lots of swim suits. The main event at the camp site was the "Heyride". Equally awesome and torturous, the heyride is set up like your standard "hay" ride with a tractor pulling an open, wooden-benched wagon (or whatever) behind it. Differences:

1. there is a 10-gallon jug of water on the back so that the riders can refill guns, buckets etc
2. there is a 20-gallon jug of water with a hose in the tractor which is periodically used by the college-aged group of male drivers to squirt the riders
3. every one along the main route of the ride stands by the road armed with anything from supersoakers to buckets full of ICE water (I got TWO of these dumped right on me....there was one mild expletive uttered...I'm truly sorry!) One of the permanent RV sites had something like Brian's "kid wash" made of PVC pipes with holes drilled into it. This one was mounted up on a flag pole and rained down on us as we drove slowly by

Every kid cried...well....except for Aiden who just shivered, tucked under my arm, and nodded emphatically every time I asked if he was OK and was he having any fun. Strangely though...it was a BLAST. We had a bucket of water at our feet and those quick-refill shooters (hard to explain). I can honestly say that I got in a number of good shots at the tormentors on the road. Logan and Brian got into the spirit by "shooting snipers" <-- this is how dad's get boys to go along with such things. After the ride was over, we jumped immediately into the warm campground pool. We did a ton of other fun stuff that weekend as well...and I was, of course, armed with a camera - pictures! Here are the kids doing the most fun thing at the campsite...running around in a big, empty tent. The game they were playing?....I'm thinking it involved bad guys since I got shot at by all of them as I unzipped the door to take some pictures. At least the water guns hadn't been filled yet.
After we set up our beds, they all decided that they were going to take a nap. Hahahahaha....nap! Obviously that lasted for all of 5 minutes.
Mackenzie was the only one who actually wanted to lay there for any length of time and kept telling the boys they were being too loud. I love the look of annoyance on her face as Aiden chats her up.
We tie-dyed shirts this year (we did pillow cases last Halloween). Aiden's is a "rainbow" shirt and Logan wanted to do Cubbies!

Back at the camp site (while we were making the shirts), the dads were cooking up some sandwich packets on the fire. It's like grilled cheese, but you wrap up your buttered-on-both-sides sando in tin foil and throw it on in!

Ready the water guns!

I believe this is after we got back from the heyride and swimming. Everyone needed a little break and a snack.

Scruffy and Checkers enjoyed the camp fire as well. Griffin, a floppy stuffed mouse we used to put in Logan's crib, came along too! Logan has a new-found love for this guy because he's seen so many pictures of himself as a baby with Griff. The other boys have matching "floppy" animals...a frog for Aiden and a brown bunny for Brady. Aiden took his frog camping as well.

Hanging out

Eating fun camp food (who counts calories and nutritional value of foods while camping?!...we sure don't I guess...judging by the amount of cheese popcorn I inhaled over the course of 2 days!)

The moms took the kids up to the main stage for a little show. I was dancing with Aiden, looked down and realized that he was DEAD asleep. Bummer! That didn't bode well for bedtime either. A 15 minute nap moves actual sleeping time from 8:00 to....go ahead guess what time he fell asleep?! 10:30! bugger! And that was only after we drove him around in the car a couple times.

When we returned from our show, the dads had this guy set up at our camp site! They bought it at the camp ground gift shop. It's a hollowed-out tiki man. When you put him in the fire, the flames shoot up through the top of his head and smoke comes out of his eyes and mouth (see later pictures!!)

A shot of our campsite from the path that leads into the woods and up to the bathroom/pool/gift shop area. That night for dinner we had mini burgers, fire cooked potatoes, corn and s'mores.

Here is the tiki man (named Tom Wiskers by Mackenzie)

This was a bit later...cool, hu?

After the kids were asleep, Tom let out a big POP and fell over backwards. Pete propped him up with a stick in front.

Along the back of the campsites is a long path through the woods. There are lots of cool places to climb, like this log, and lots of different games to play. A few the kids made up were: hunting for animals in the rain forest, putting out imaginary fires with their water guns and then just general running.

Ryan wasn't took keen on standing up on the log.

Sunday morning, Memaw and Grandpa brought Brady to the campsite! YEAH!! They were heading out the next morning for a trip to Arizona and we knew they had a lot to do. We wanted to stay for a while longer and offered to run get the baby....they were kind enough to drive him to us instead. Here, he settles in with his coffee and a donut (the coffee cup is empty!)

That morning we rented pedal cars.

It was quite the good workout for the moms and dads. The kids had a blast riding on the front (or in the case of our car, off a jump seat in the back).

Brady was a bit apprehensive at first, but once we got going, he kicked his feet and squealed with delight.

Here's Mackenzie in the jump seat behind me (only Brian could steer so I was free to pedal, snap picture, pedal, snap picture).

Logan took a turn on our cart with his brothers.

This is the pirate ship. It's a group of families that go every year for the water weekend...they're the ones that put ice in their water for the Heyriders!

After the bikes, we did this mining thing where you buy a bag of sand, wash it out in screen-bottomed trays, and collect either fossils or gems. We bought gems. I had this idea to make a stepping stone for our summer vacation every year. Brian suggested we collect things wherever we go and make an overall "summer" stone. I saved the gems in a bag for our future project. (the stone was pretty much the reason why we did this little activity...) well...plus it's really cool.

uncovering the treasures

Brady found a perfect little spot to squat (he's inside the water trough!)

We did one last swim at the pool and headed for home. By the way, I forgot to mention that Logan did an overall stellar job sleeping. We drove him around, transferred him to his bed and didn't hear from him until the morning. Aiden did a good job as well....after he finally fell asleep. Nothing like his hour-long waking at 2am last time we went camping. :)