Labor Day Camping

Our annual Labor Day Camping took place this year at Mississinewa State Park.  We had the privilege of taking our boat this year which made for a mighty good time by the kids I do believe.  We took different groups out at a time as pretty much all the kids are of age to go(minus Ellie and Josie who are the two babies).  I sadly don't have any water pictures, but all the kids either skied, wake boarded, knee boarded, or went tubing.  Nick said some of those little kiddos wanted to go so FAST when tubing, but he obliged and away they went.  FAST!!!

The first year we went, we tented it.  (only had 3 boys then)

The second year we went we rented a pop up camper (Ellie was 4 months)

This year we upgraded once again and rented a trailer.  It was really nice to have this, but we aren't sure it is worth the xtra money that we had to pay.  We shall see what next year brings.  Maybe we will go back to a pop up????

 We always find time to eat:).  Here are the kids all going first and getting their food.

 Ellie patiently waiting for her food to arrive.  She was such a good girl camping and I think she really enjoyed it as you will notice in the pictures at the bottom of this post:).

 Our little setup.  We had the perfect spot really.  Big grassy area in the center of the campers where kids could play, run around, have a fire pit, and eat our meals together.  The nice thing about our group is the size.  Its small enough to all eat together and its small enough that everyone gets a great amount of time on the boat(since we only have one boat for our group of four families).  Any bigger and meals would probably be on our own, and boating would become less and less for each person as the time it takes to get everyone out there and given a turn.

 This was absolutely priceless.  So Tate couldn't get his meat cut, and Liam so kindly obliged and offered to cut it.  Liam worked about 15 minutes on that meat!!  He sawed and sawed away with the plastic knife and did it all with a smile on his face.  I offered to help him 3 different times but each time he said "no, I can get it".  Liam, you are so sweet to offer to cut Tate's pork chop.  What a good friend you are:).  BTW, after I told him to press harder with the knife he finally got it cut in half!!!

 Here is our group of kiddos in the bunch.  We are missing Maddox as he was not in the mood to be in a picture. Looks like the girls just might be outnumbered.

 Well, on the day we were leaving(monday) I was out packing up stuff outside and looked back to see this ADORABLE picture!!  Ellie so sweetly propped against the camper with a very content look on her face.  I felt like she was thinking "now this is the life, oh how I love to camp!!"

 And we get home, and we put Ellie down to go play.....Nick and I and kids busy ourselves with getting the camping stuff all put away, laundry started, and you know how that goes.  I thought Ellie seemed awfully quiet so I went to check on her and OH MY GOODNESS.....this is how I found her!!!!  I am pretty sure she thought she was still camping and could play in the rocks she found near the "fire pit".  Just like camping!!!!  Our fireplace is now zip tied shut!!!