our adventurous camping trip

after mason and i went to estes park in july, we loved it so much we were really excited to go back. so we decided to go camping over the labor day weekend. we felt pretty adventurous camping with an 8 month old and everything went really well. we had our moments of course... the first night anders got too cold so he slept with mason in mason's sleeping bag. we also dealt with some bad weather as it was SO windy at times and rainy for parts of the trip. but we can't wait for next summer to get to go camping again! and we were thankful that anders hasn't started crawling yet! that will definitely add another degree of difficulty to camping next year!

luckily there was some grassy areas next to our tent site so we didn't have to worry too much about anders eating rocks. he still managed to find his way over to the gravel though. he loved playing with the gravel! once his 'eat everything' stage is over (when is that?) we'll have to get him some sand and dirt to play in. he LOVES it!

this is our camp site with a pretty backdrop...

still smiling after the first night... that's a good sign!

we drove into rocky mountain national park (next year we're going to get a season pass) and went to bear lake. yep, that's two bear lakes in one summer! it was so beautiful!

we always forget the sun shade for the backpack. poor kid.


we woke up sunday morning (too early) to wind... it was beautiful but windy!

two handsome guys ready for church... we went to church in lyons, about a half and hour from estes. it was a fun ward and we felt really welcomed there. in fact we ran into a missionary that had served in fort collins and was now serving in lyons so it was great to see him again! the only problem was the andrew was the ONLY baby under two years old. and andrew isn't exactly a quiet baby and it is especially noticeable at church. so that made things somewhat interesting for us. in our home ward, there is a whole chorus of chatter and crying from babies of all ages so anders fits right in! :) we were glad to be back home this past sunday and not have to worry quite as much about anders and his noise levels.

a short time after we got back from church, it started raining. but we didn't let it dampen our spirits!

it rained for a bit and then cleared up. pretty soon the clouds parted and we had the most beautiful evening! if we had been indoors we would have missed most of it.

that night it was SO windy. i woke up at one point thinking that the tent was going to blow over. thank goodness mason staked the tent (i'm always in too much of a hurry to get the fire going for smores to mess with that part - i'm grateful mason pays attention to the details).

here's a pic of what was happening to our tent during the night and the next morning because it was so windy. needless to say, we were all huddled at the other side of the tent trying to get some sleep!

that day, first off, we went to lake marie. it was a gorgeous morning. i love the outdoors!

then we went to the 'top' of rocky mountain national park again (we'd been there in july). it was SO windy up there. it was crazy!!! we didn't stop much because anders was sleeping. although, at one point we did stop so mason could take some pics. he was being thrown around so much by the wind, i thought i should get a pic of him taking a picture in all this wind. so i got out of the car and whoa, the wind took my breath away! i could hardly stand let alone open the car doors! i never did get a pic of mason but we got a couple in the crazy wind.


my foot almost got slammed in the door because it closed so quickly on me as i was getting back in. i moved it just in time!

we had a great time camping and are looking forward to doing it again. we saw a lot of cool stuff while we were camping and so now we have our eye on all this cool camping gear. we'll probably never get half of it but it's fun to dream.... :) i think this has the potential of becoming a great family tradition.