Two months ago my husband came home and told me that he had reserved our favorite campsite for 3 nights in July. We typically head up to Rockport, in Utah, for one or two weekends a summer to enjoy camping and playing in the reservoir. I was very excited and put it on my calendar immediately since we missed a summer living on the east coast.

Cut to last week and I was reminded that we were leaving to go camping on Thursday. All 4 of the kids were excited. We invited 3 families to go with us, Jason (14) was bring a friend, and Adam (17) was planning on bringing a few friends who were just going to stay for 1 night. We shortened the trip to 2 nights instead of 3 so that we could be back in town for the Fourth of July celebrations.

By Thursday afternoon all of our adult friends had flaked out on us and decided to go do other things. The boys were still bringing his friends and we were still going to go and have a great time.

We got up to the lake around 5, set up camp, which consisted of 3 tents, and a hammock community for the older teenage boys. The site was amazing with tons of shade, and just feet from the beach, plus we had the whole area to ourselves.

We made a basic dinner requested by the kids: hot dogs & grilled cheese with fruit, chips, and baby carrots – I had to pretend that I was feeding the kids something healthy.  Then we walked on the beach and had S’mores, cookies, junk of all kinds, and a few more hot dogs for the hungry boys.

We sat around the fire, and had a great night. The 14 year-olds chopped up a dead tree stump with a hammer and then burned things while my girls watched and thought they were totally cool.

The older boys ran around the beach and tried to catch all of the “critters” that kept invading our space. Most of us retired to the tents around midnight so that the teenage boys could take over the fire for a couple of hours.

Wake up was with the sun,  followed by campfire time and breakfast. Breakfast was breakfast burritos with potatoes, sausage, and scrambled eggs. And for those that were still hungry we had Pop-Tarts, juice, blueberry muffins, grapes, and well, more hot dogs.

Then we spent 30 minutes blowing up an AWESOME floating island that we played on in the water for a long time while the teenagers had driftwood wars.

The big boys, parents, and girls had a great time while the 14 year olds were not happy to be touching water at all.

By 1 pm the 14 year-olds were tired and grumpy, and Jason had a twisted ankle. The 17 year-old boys had to leave to head back – oh, the life of the fast food worker. So the 14 year-olds felt like they needed to leave too. It was hot and sunny and they were pooped out. The decision was made that I would take the boys and my daughter Haley (12) back down to civilization that afternoon and Lewis would head home the next morning with Abi in time to have a fun 4th of July. The boys were asleep before I got on the highway so I am guessing that they were a little tired.

Around 7 pm Abi decided that she wanted to come home so that she could watch and participate in the firework fun at my parent’s house. So being the great dad that he is, Lewis loaded the car in less than 45 minutes and got home just in time for Abi to watch the fireworks.

I have always known that I have a 36 hour camping limit, and I think my kids have grown into that too. We love camping but now we know that unless we are camping at the Marriott then we need to plan on coming home after 36 hours. It is not just me that likes real bathrooms, showers, and beds.