Box Elder Campground

We've been trying to have a Stoddard campout every year. This year we decided we'd try to make it officially an annual tradition the second week of August. And make it be when we do our big fancy Easter Egg hunt.  We were running out of places to go and weather was always pretty variable in the Spring. So we went to Box Elder campground up in Mantua. Greta was super excited to wake up and go!

We had a big group site which was really fun being all together. Lots of great space to explore and play and get filthy :)

Hanging out in the screened tent playing catch phrase waiting for everyone to show up.

Adorable filth.

We had a box of faulty garbage sacks. Oops.

I am developing a love/hate relationship with the tent. Haha. Mostly love. But man oh man. They do NOT go to bed. Until I'm ready to go crazy. Haha. But it is SO cute them being crazy with each other. It is a little magical for a kid to sleep in a tent. So that part makes me so happy. And the late nights mostly worth it :)

All day every day. The firepit and benches created a perfect circular lap that the kids went around and around and around. And around. I think it's time to get Greta a strider bike.

Thursday we went to Hyrum Reservoir. My dad rented a few paddle boards and a kayak. It was SO fun. The water was so great. The weather was perfect. The only thing that kind of sucked was there were a lot of bees. Luckily no one got stung. No incidents at all.

Dude. They kill me. So dang cute.

This one too :)

She really just sat on this for a bit. When I tried to take her out it was right after a nap and she was NOT a fan. You'll see.

Logan wasn't a fan of the sand at first. He sort of warmed up to it a bit later.

These pictures are perfectly in order...obviously. It's hard when I join pictures from 4 or 5 different cameras. Still cute. Still loving the water.

After nap - not loving the water.

This was the highlight of Harvey's day. Going out on the kayak by himself. He actually did really good! It was a little harder getting him back to shore than away from it, but he LOVED it. Thought he was so cool. And he was. And is.

See - a bit out of order. Oh well. Precious sleeping babes. Not long enough, but glad they got a bit of a nap.

 Paddle board yoga isn't for me I guess.

We wore this one out too. SOOOO funny.

The next morning after breakfast the kids got to do a painting craft Gram brought while they did the egg hunt.

Let the fun begin! It actually was REALLY fun! I love this tradition and as the kids get a little bigger to be more involved, the way we did it this year was PERFECT. We just walked around to different spots around the campground. It was fun to just be outside walking the whole time and nice that we didn't have to put kids in and out of car seats. I loved it.

The prizes! The not baby kids got awesome bags of crayons and coloring books and paints and markers and colored pencils and scissors and glue. And the babies got some little finger toys and other toys and some baby pouches and puffs, etc. Big kids got amazon gift cards. So awesome.

This hand washing station was another hot ticket spot. If they weren't doing laps on the "track", you could usually find them here. Soaping, bubbling, contaminating everything. Oh - and I didn't get pictures of this but there were a couple of hills by our site. One pretty gradual from the bathroom and one on the other side of camp that was a little steeper. Harvey loved riding down them and screaming at the top of his lungs! He liked going to the bathroom, and when we were done, before we could go back to camp, we had to race around the bathroom - him on his bike and me running. He'd decide how many times. 2-3 laps around and then he'd ZIP on down the hill and I'd chase after him. He's so funny.

The hard thing about camping with non walkers is they get so bored at not being mobile. This site had a pretty big area of sort of grass - we tried making them stay on a blanket but they just wanted to explore everywhere. Lottie was zipping around like crazy and loved her short lived freedom :)

The great thing about camping with a lot of adults is a little more help with kids etc. I actually got a 30 minute break in the hammock. Well, it wasn't 30 minutes kidless - this little peach came over to push me and it was so sweet.

Then Harvey ripped part of the hammock trying to pull and swing me, and after he told Greta - "hey Greta, come here, we're gonna do something that's gonna make mom proud." He wanted her to come stand by him so they could do "family pictures". Haha. So cute. Great poses. Greta didn't really cooperate. It did make me smile. And proud.

Cutest bath babies ever.

Biggest mishap of the trip. Greta climbed into Clara's seat on the top of the table. I was trying to feed her and she wasn't wanting to eat. I turned around to turn off the stove that was boiling water and I don't know what happened but she fell forward. I turned around to see her face on the ground and her neck bent all the way back and her screaming and stuck in the seat. I had a moment of severe PANIC. She had a bad bloody nose and was screaming - but I soon realized her neck wasn't hurt or anything worse. It freaked me out. She was out of it for awhile and it was so sad. But she bounced back a little later in the evening and was fine, thank goodness.

Got all packed up about lunch time and then headed to Maddock's drive inn for food and peach shakes :) So delicious. It was such a fun trip. My kids are really starting to love camping and I love that. That was our last trip of the year - but I'm really satisfied by what we were able to do this summer. We have a few more fun things this fall, so fun's not over yet! I hope we get lots of camping in next year too. I can't decide if Lottie will be easier or harder next year :) Guess we'll find out!

Oh - speaking of Lottie - she wanted nothing to do with Tanner when we got home. It was kind of funny and sad. He had been gone that week for work so didn't get to go up with us. She's since warmed back up to him :)