Cam-PING

Thanks to my pregnancy and the infamous Texas heat we weren't planning on camping again until the fall after the baby is born.  But then Brandon mentioned that he would probably have Friday off for a training holiday.  He suggested camping as something fun we could do to enjoy the day.  I was fine with the idea if he was fine doing most of the work, and if we could find a campsite that fit two criteria.  1.  It HAD to have shade, and 2. it was close- just incase Brandon didn't really get the day off. 

After a little bit of online research I found a campsite that fit both criteria.  Mother Neff State Park was not even an hour away and the website showed that it had tons of shade.  

The kids were really excited at the idea of going camping again.  Anytime we talked about it Lydia would ask in a super excited voice, "I go cam-PING now?"

The state park was near Temple which we haven't really explored yet, even though it's close.  So I googled "things to do in Temple" to see if there was anything of interest to us.  

I hit jackpot right off the bat.  Temple has a railroad museum.  I love trains and so do the kids. I knew we had to go here.  As an added bonus, we would get in free with our military ID's.  (Regular price is $4.00 for adults.)

I'm glad it ended up being free.  There were some interesting things inside the museum, but not enough to hold the kids' attention.  They zipped through the museum in less than 10 minutes.  Then they discovered this room full of train toys.  They spent at least half an hour in here.  Brandon and I took turns looking at all the displays while the kids played.  

The most interesting part of the museum was actually outside - and it was all free.  They had some railroad cars to climb on.

The kids had fun looking at all the big train cars.

And then they found some little plastic play ones.

Charlotte "made food" for everyone out of rocks and we all ate.  Even Brandon and I squeezed into the little car.  (We were there about 4:00 PM and we appreciated the shade that this little car provided.)

The museum is located right by the Amtrak station.  Lots of real trains went by while we were there.

The kids were simultaneously excited and scared to see this train go by.

We could have gone to see some Pullman cars as part of our museum admission, but we were all too hot.  All the kids just wanted to go back to the car.  So that's what we did.

We drove up to Mother Neff State Park and tried to check in. The office was closed, but a park worker told us that we could just pick whatever site we wanted  because we were the only people who had reservations for a tent site.  (No one else was crazy enough to want to tent camp in August.)

Brandon put up the tent by himself while I took it easy.

Well, he did have some "help."

We were very impressed by the park.  Someone at work had complained to Brandon about how expensive camping in Texas is.  I don't know what that guy was talking about.  We only had to pay $12 to camp here.  And unlike the state parks in Utah, we didn't have to pay a reservation fee.  We did have to pay the park entrance fee of $2 per adult, but $4 was totally worth it for all this shade.  In all we paid $16 dollars and basically had the place to ourselves.  (The RV loop had people in it too.)

We joked that the place was so spacious that it actually made our giant tent seem small.

Since it was really hot and humid we didn't bother to put the rain-fly on the tent.  Brandon has always wanted to sleep with the rain-fly off, but I've never been that brave.  This was the very first time I've ever been confident that we wouldn't be surprised by rain.

Once the tent was up it was time for Brandon to start making dinner.  He didn't mind doing all the work.  He likes going "real camping."  He even cooked the chili and hot dogs over the fire, because he hasn't had a chance to build one lately.

As soon as dinner was over Lydia said, "I ready - go on little walk."  So we got everyone ready to hike.  First we had to drive to a trail head - which wasn't that far away, but when you hike with toddlers and a pregnant belly every step counts.  And then we had to put shoes and socks on all the kids.  Finally we were all out of the car and ready to go.

The "hike" was just a walk along a flat trail.  The scenery was really pretty.  Our kids all reacted to the walk differently.  Lydia was up front with Daddy and enjoyed the "venture."  Derrick walked by himself and inspected everything that he saw.  He'd stop for sticks, bugs, rocks, grass, and anything else that was new.  Charlotte stayed with me and was afraid of everything.  She was scared of the dead trees.  She was scared of the grasshoppers in the grass next to the trail.  And most of all she was scared of a cow that we couldn't even see.  We could just hear it mooing in the distance.

It was getting dark, but we weren't worried about it because we'd remembered to grab the flashlight.  Charlotte, though, decided it was time to turn around.  I tried carrying her for a little bit, but then Derrick decided to turn around too.  So we all turned around.

And here is proof that I was on the trip.  Somehow I only ended up in one picture this whole weekend.

Then we went back to camp and Brandon built the fire back up.  Funny story about our firewood.  I read that the park didn't allow anyone to gather firewood.  We didn't have enough scrap wood to bring our own.  Brandon was trying to figure out where he could get some firewood.  He thought, "I wish we lived near some woods or something - oh wait we do."  So he went out to the wilderness area behind our house and found a ton of firewood.

As usual the girls loved watching the fire.  This was the first time we attempted to make s'mores with them.  Brandon made all the s'mores and we ate them.  They were a little too messy for the girls, but overall they liked eating them.

We had fun sitting around the fire and enjoying the night.  This is how most of our conversation went:

Cow:  Mooooo
Charlotte: What's that?
Me: It's a cow.
Brandon: Who is ready for another marshmallow?
Derrick: IIIIEEEEAAAGGGG
Brandon: Here you go Derrick
Cow: Mooooo
Charlotte: What's that?
Brandon: It's a cow.
Charlotte: Scary cow.
Me: It's a nice cow.
Cow: Mooooo
Charlotte: What's that?
Lydia (in the exact same tone of voice that Brandon and I had used): It's a cow.

Despite Charlotte's fear of the cow it was actually my own fear that determined when it was time to go inside the tent.  A giant bug flew at my face and I kind of freaked out while trying to bat it away.  After seeing me loose it, the kids weren't in any mood to stay outside anymore.  We went in the tent and the kids played with the toys we'd brought for them.  Charlotte spent a lot of time "putting my aminals to sleep."

Eventually the kids all fell asleep.  I think this was the first time I ever uncovered them from their blankets at night.  I was really worried they would get too hot under their blankets (the only reason we'd brought the blankets at all was because the girls ALWAYS sleep with them.)

I knew I would be too hot.  Even with the air conditioner and the ceiling fan blowing on me I'm usually too hot to sleep at night.  Brandon and I didn't even bother bringing sleeping bags.  We just brought sheets so the air mattress wouldn't get all sweaty.  It was kind of nice to pack light, but as predicted I had a really hard time sleeping because of the heat.  I'm glad we slept with the rain-fly off because I enjoyed looking at the stars as I just laid in bed.    

In the morning the kids and I went on a walk to the bathroom while Brandon got breakfast ready.

We took my own camping menu advise and had little boxes of cereal for breakfast.  We also had hot chocolate because the kids requested it when we were talking about going cam-PING.  Despite the heat it still tasted really good.

After breakfast Brandon cleaned up all the outside stuff while I cleaned up inside the tent.  I was so happy to not have to roll up sleeping bags.  We'd also brought less clothes because we didn't have to worry about being cold at night.  It seems like the heat had led us to pack lighter in general.  Oh and we also didn't have to deal with bottles or binkies (YAY). So even though we were super sweaty this camping trip was actually really pleasant and easy.  

The kids never do very well while we pack up the campsite.  They are always cranky from a lack of sleep or something.  As always, we found it was just better to put them in their car seats with the windows down and pack up as fast as possible.    

We didn't have anything else that we wanted to see (and I was so sweaty I didn't want to be seen - or smelled) so we just drove home.  I took a shower, but Brandon decided that this was a good chance to clean out the garage.  So he did that while the kids played in his saw dust pile.  It tells you something about the state of our garage that the kids ended up dirtier playing in there than they did from the camping trip.  

And that was our latest family adventure.