Camping

Yes, you read that right, the Parras went camping. Granted it was only at Mutual Dell which is less than 20 minutes from our home but that makes it convenient and still camping. We actually bought a tent for this trip instead of borrowing one. So see we are really campers now. Actually even David likes overnight camping as long as it's just one night and I couldn't agree with him more. We had an absolutely blast with our little family and lots of friends from our old ward. We just sat around the fire and talked and talked and talked and David played with the fire the entire night. The boys were in absolute heaven with their old friends and plenty of places to run. We had the last group site on the trail so there was no one else around and lots of trees to play in. Also there were lots of kids and they played really well together. We put the kids to bed around 10 pm and they fell right to sleep. We went to bed about an hour later and here is my only complaint about the camping trip. I fell asleep around 5:30 in the morning finally! I was still awake when Lucas woke up at 2:30 to nurse and then shortly after that I listened to a raccoon try to get into the food and prayed that it was just a raccoon and not something bigger like a bear. During that Matthew woke up and then slept in patches until about 5:00 when he went to go sleep with his dad. I think he was cold. In fact David and I froze most of the night. I forget how cold it is after dark in the mountains. So I slept for about 2 hours that night. That is why I can only go camping for one night because I can't sleep. The next morning we took it really slow and again sat around the camp fire while the boys played. We didn't get home until noon. These pictures were taken the next morning when a lot of people had already left.

Here's Lucas taking a morning nap. He was not even 7 months old and did great on his first camping trip.

David loved the fire. He obviously missed out on all those scouting camping trips because he hogs the fire to make up for it. He stuck his entire hot dog (bun and all) on the stick and roasted. In the morning he conducted experiments with the kids about how different materials burned. The kids loved it and kept bringing him different things to burn.

Jacob and Adam loved seeing their friends from PG!

Jacob and Jake

Zach, Adam, Nathan and Jacob

Family Picture

Lots of work (especially hauling everything to the campsite) but so worth it. Best company in the world. Thank you, Melanie, for putting it together. And thank you, David, for my afternoon 3 hour nap. How do we get on the invite list for next year?