We WILL be a camping family:

 Right at the beginning of the school year my in-laws were asked to babysit Camp Koholowo up Payson canyon.  That's where our stake does girls' camp.  I guess when it's in between stake activities they ask a couple to stay there and keep everything safe and working.  The cool thing for us though is that you can have your family come up and camp too if you want.  So we made it up there for the weekend with a bunch of other siblings. 

 It was so beautiful and quiet and peaceful up there.

 They even had a ropes course that some boy had made for his eagle project.  The kids played on that thing for hours and hours and hours.

There was a great big lodge where we had a little impromptu talent show with all the cousins and then we shut off all the lights and us grown ups pulled out the glow sticks and had a glow stick dance party.  Such a fun night.

We were even able to have bathtime.

With a fully functioning industrial sized kitchen.

John was seriously coveting that jumbo grill top.  Pretty sure we NEED this thing in our kitchen.  Breakfast would be a breeze.

 

Camping with my kids is not in my top ten most favorite things to do.  Maybe not even top 20.  The older ones are getting to be a little cooler but the younger ones are grumpy and tired and whiney the entire time.  I never sleep because I always have a baby who I have painstakingly trained to sleep only in a crib.  That makes for a long crib-less night for me.  Then we get home and it takes a full day to put everything back away and clean all the smelly clothes and for the kids to recover from a their fun hangovers.  

All that aside though, I believe in camping as a family.  I want my kids to grow up knowing how to be outside.  To explore and get dirty and have adventures.  I want them to sleep all next to each other telling stories and playing games.  I want them to see cool places and do interesting things but when you have 5 kids expensive resorts and all-inclusive vacations are out of the question so camping is sort of the only way to make that stuff happen.

So John and I have been thinking about how we can make camping more doable for all of us. We need some things like a camp kitchen were we can wash dishes and prepare food.  We need a fold-able picnic table and benches to eat and play games at.  We need a little covered storage trailer to pull behind our van to carry all our stuff.  And we need a new tent that we can all fit in.  So John and I headed to Kirkhams the other day to see what our options are going to be for a tent.  I would like to camp in something along these lines:

But I'm pretty sure this is more what John is thinking:

So we're trying to meet in the middle and this springbar tent seems to be it.  Big enough to stand up in and have some room for a little card table in case it's raining, but small enough to pack with us where ever we want to go.  So now we just have to save up the money to buy something like this.  Maybe by then I won't have a baby who has to sleep in a crib and we'll all be able to make it through the night.