The not-quite-camping Camping Trip

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to get away with our home group from church to some beautiful property about an hour from our house.

Unfortunately, it was only this beautiful outside for about 2 hours of the whole trip, but we didn't let that deter us from having fun.

 These two earned some sort of merit badge from the weekend.  Despite the cold, rainy, windy weather we decided to still attempt sleeping out in the tent Friday night.  We put the kids to bed out in it (alone- no one else was stupid enough to attempt tent camping when there was a nice warm lodge to sleep in!) and they never once complained about being cold.  They slept through til 3am when we carried them inside because we couldn't hack it.  I'm not sure if it was the 38 degrees or the 20mph winds that really did me in!  Either way, having the lodge as our back-up plan was awesome!  As were our friends who didn't get mad when we woke them up banging our way inside and helped us get set up and warmed up.

The kids didn't let the cold wet weather deter them from their one true goal this weekend which was fishing.  I took no pictures of it because, hello, it was cold and wet out there!  But they went out 3 different times for at least an hour to fish and loved reporting back on who caught what and how many.

 Love this guy even though he made me sleep out on the cold ground!  He more then made up for it with the perfectly cooked pizza mountain pies he made me.  He knows the way to my heart!

 Late Saturday afternoon the clouds broke open and we got out there to enjoy as much sunshine as we could. The property we were on used to be gravel pits that are now a series of small lakes.  There were tons of trails, but it was too wet to try any of them out.

How much do I love these two?!  And this picture!  Mati's actually smiling appropriately which is a rare occurrence!  (See above picture for proof!)  Mati loved playing with his buddies and just general running around all weekend long.

Thanks to our friend, Sandy, Haven discovered her love for checkers this weekend.  She spent hours, usually in front of the huge fireplace, playing checkers with whomever would play.  Hello, great gift idea for my girl!

So we didn't really camp on our camping trip, but we still had a blast!  Good friends, cooking food over the fire, staying up late playing games, kids enjoying themselves and a huge fireplace to keep us warm. Who needs a tent to go camping?!