Cousins & Campland

This last week has been such a blast! My cousin, Sami, and her cute family came to our house as part of their summer vacation. We LOVED having them stay with us and getting to do so many fun things with them. Our kids are exactly the same age so they are of course in HEAVEN!! It was constant play time from sun up till sundown for three and a half days. It was awesome. Sami and I have great memories of playing together when we were kids so it's so fun to see the next generation getting these same experiences. Our only wish is that we all lived a little bit closer. Sami is in Utah, which is just too far away!

After staying at our house they headed down to San Clemente to spend a few days with Sheri and her family. Then on Wednesday afternoon I packed my kids up and went down to San Diego to meet up with Sami, Sheri, and their families for 3 days of camping fun at Campland. Spencer had to work so I decided that I would brave it on my own. Both Sami and Sheri's husbands are awesome and pretty much set my entire campsite up for me and everyone pitched in to help me out. Camping is always fun, but it is a TON of work. Between the three of us women and Tyson we planned and prepared all the meals and took turns entertaining the 8 children. Yes, I said 8!! I was so grateful for every one's help because by the second day I was actually pretty sick and was having a hard time keeping up with everything. Luckily the kids were awesome and were just enjoying playing with each other and getting dirty. There were plenty of scooters to go around as well and the kids had a blast riding around our campsite loop, that was probably Owen's favorite activity.

 

Here's Tyson getting to work on setting up my tent. Tyson was amazing with not only the set-up and take down, but he was so great with all the kids and they all just adored him.

Here's what feeding a small preschool army looks like while camping......lots of stuff!!!! I'm sick as a dog in this pic, but trying to hang in there.

These three little girls are all pretty close in age, Audrey being the youngest. They were so cute to watch and were always playing together. Miley, Kennedy, and Audrey.

 Preston still isn't walking and I really didn't want him crawling around in the dirt, so I kept him strapped in this seat as much as possible when we were just hanging out at the campsite. Let's just say that he ate quite a few snacks over the 3 day period....Ha!

 Here's Preston and Claire getting a little bit of freedom at the Campland playground. These two loved being able to crawl around the playground. I was surprised at how well Preston did camping. He slept great and other than being terrified to sit in the sand at the beach (just like Owen was at that age) he did fantastic. Both these babies were little troopers!!

 The five oldest kids. Owen, Cameron, Miley, Kennedy, and Audrey. Sami, Sheri, and I each had a baby with us as well.

The next three pictures are just me and my kids hanging out in the morning after our first night. We let the 3 oldest kids all sleep in a tent together without any adults. Owen thought it was the best thing ever!! Us adults found it pretty entertaining to listen to them talk and laugh inside the tent when they thought we couldn't hear them. The 3 kids stayed up pretty late the first night but by the second night I think they all fell asleep within 10 minutes, they were exhausted!! Audrey, Preston, and I shared a tent. It was fun to snuggle with my two little ones.

Campland is such a great place to take kids camping because there are so many things for them to do there. There are a couple of parks and swimming pools on-site as well as a convenient store, café, and ice cream parlor. But the best part of all is that it's located right next to Mission Bay. The kids, other than Preston, had a blast playing in the sand and swimming.

 

 On our last night there was a camp-wide GLOW dance party with a DJ and everything. We took the kids over for a little bit and gave them all these funny glow glasses and glow sticks. The kids went a little crazy at the glow party, but it was hilarious to watch!! I'm not sure if they had more fun dancing and running at the glow party or making S'mores back at the campsite?

 

All I know is that summer is awesome. Camping is a lot of work with kids and takes a ton of prep work, but it's amazing. Being with family, and cousins and lots of kids running around is so much fun, I love it. Even though I was pretty sick the entire trip, and kind of grouchy, and maybe a little more lazy then usual I was glad that we got to make these memories. Childhood is the best!!

I also need to write down that my cousin Sheri is absolutely amazing. She told me that she was going to pour muffin mix in a hollowed out orange, wrap it in foil, throw it in the fire, and amazing muffins were going to be made. I was SUPER skeptical about actual muffins being made, but she was right. The muffins were amazing, the best thing we ate the whole trip. I seriously bow down to you Sheri, and your mad muffin making skills!!