The Great Outdoors

After having so much fun in Washington, and doing so many activities, I was determined not to return to city life and spend our weekends shopping and eating! So the next weekend, we loaded up and went camping... in August.... in Texas... in a drought.

We went to Huntsville State Park. When I was growing up my family would camp here every Easter weekend with our ward. Crazy how you remember things as a kid! Let's just say the shelters were not quite "gigantic" and the swimming hole was not exactly "a huge lake."

Despite the heat, we did some fun things and tried to make the most of it.

We made foil dinners, which the kids loved. They filled their pouches with chicken, carrots, and potatoes and thought it was so cool to cook it all on the fire.

And of course there were smores. You can't go camping without them! Notice how filthy Sydnee is? Her and Paige were covered in dirt, every inch. That was the hardest part for me... the dirt that stuck to the sweat that you couldn't avoid.

So Sam says paddleboating as the only paddler is not as fun as it sounds. Best workout he'd had in months!

We rode bikes, built a fire, did a little fishing and slept on cots and bedrolls. All the must haves for a family campout! Even with the triple digit heat, the kids said "can we come back sometime" when it was time to go. So I count it as a success!

On the way home, we stopped to get a close up look at Sam Houston. This enormous statue was just up the road, and in all the times I've been past it, I have never stopped to see it. An added bonus to our outing!