Boswell Family Camping Trip

Our family took a camping trip Friday night.  We arrived at Ray Roberts Isle Du Bois State Park about 3:30 on Friday afternoon and Left about 3:45 on Sat afternoon, so our camping trip was literally a 24 hour event.  The kids have been very excited about camping, and Macy has hardly been able to wait.  After unloading the car and setting up the tent, we made a fire for our hot dog supper.  I went to take the first picture of our trip and realized that the card for my camera was not in the camera, but at home in the computer!!!  I decided to take pictures with the video camera, which I also brought, but forgot to charge, so I had 3 min of charge on the video camera.  Considering the circumstances, the pictures turned out okay.

  The kids did great staying away from the fire. 

Here is our tent.  Jeremy's dad gave us the tent, and when asked what the kids favorite things was after the trip at dinner, Macy said, "the campsite and fishing."

Macy on Daddy's shoulders on a little hike on a trail near our campsite in the Hawthorne area.

The morning after...

Our rest was anything but peaceful.  Here is my best description.  We put the kids to bed around 9:00 after feeding them marshmallows and smores, so when Jeremy and I turned in 30 min later, they were still awake.  I slept on the cot, where Macy is in the picture.  She is in my makeshift sleeping bag that my dad told me I could make out of an old twin comforter and a sheet.  I safety-pinned the sheet and comforter together all the way around.  It felt like sleeping in a straight jacket!  Well, I would have been fine, but Macy was cold, so I let her have the wool blanket I brought for me as additional cover.  I was cold, so I tried to curl in a ball in my straight jacket sleeping bag, and I covered my head totally with the "sleeping bag" with little success at keeping warm.  The reason I do not have a sleeping bag is that Macy threw up in mine last year when Jeremy took her camping, and I did not think I could clean out the smell so we trashed my old sleeping bag.  Anyway, between the trains coming by every 20 min and blowing their horns, Macy waking up cold a couple of times in the night and needing to be re-covered (which Jeremy did, b/c I was literally stuck in my sleeping bag).  And, the crows and some other kind of bird that sounds like a horn blowing first thing in the morning, we had a peaceful night's sleep.  I kept thinking in the night that surely daytime would come the next time I got woken up.  Jarett seemed to sleep through all of it better than anyone else.  He did not wake up till I got up in the morning to go use the restroom.

Jarett with his new batman fishing pole.  He was so proud of his present and wanted to carry it everywhere.  I just knew he would break it! (but he didn't)

I was also a little afraid that Jarett would drop his pole over the side of the fishing dock.

Macy, Jeremy, and Jarett fishing.

So, the kids quickly tired of catching no fish, and went to playing in the minnow bucket.  My favorite quote of the trip was Jarett with his hand in the minnow bucket saying, "Come here, I'm not going to hurt you!"

Macy's a chip off the old block--I used to love playing in the minnow bucket.  She would take 2 fish and make them kiss--so cute.

Jarett got pretty good at catching the minnows, too.

We tried another fishing spot that was more out of the wind.  I will say this, that Macy had more fun holding the pole and waiting for fish than Jarett.  He got bored really fast and started his own game of throwing rocks in the water, and making splashes.  This, too, I am sure contributed to the fact that we did not catch any fish.  

When asked his favorite thing about camping, Jarett replied, "throwing rocks in the water."  Well, there you got it.  Our first family camping trip was a success.  The kids did not want to leave, but when we told them a thunder storm was coming, they did not argue with the decision too much.  We ended the trip with a stop at our favorite place to eat brisket--Clark's BBQ in Tioga, TX, only 10 minutes from where we camped.