Our Jarvis Jive: Camping. :)

We went camping for the first time in over four years this summer! I know, I can hardly believe it, I have always just been so nervous to take little ones out for so long, and if you know my family, we don't like to go unless we can go for four days or more. Finally, this year, we committed to going and we got my parents, and Jen's family to come with us. Jen and Cade have some family who own property up on Kolob and they were nice enough to let us use it, it was beautiful, and perfect. We did have a little shack that had a shower and toilet in it, which was nice, it was just a short hike from where we put our tents. We bought a ten person tent this year, so we had lots of room, and Bridger did amazing at night in his sleeping bag. Beckham still ended up in bed with me part of the night, every night.

Both boys absolutely LOVED being outside, in the dirt, for four days. It was fun to watch them, to see their freedom out there away from everything. They played hard, got filthy, played some more, got even filthier, ate some delicious food and played with their cousins. They did have one bath, but otherwise, I just gave them baby wipe baths every night and put them to bed. Brianna did tie-dye with all the kids, and they all loved wearing their cool shirts around and playing Army with Jeremy. The kids had a couple of movie nights in the "beast," (Jen and Cade's suburban) which allowed us adults to play some games!

This guy loves smores!! :)

So, the nights were great. Here is how they went...one of the nights it was raining so hard, and was so windy, that even inside our little screen tent we were getting soaked and we had to go to bed. Other than that, it rained a couple of times, but it was fun. :) One night was SO windy, and the tents flapping everywhere were SO noisy! Then, another night, I could hear an animal walking around outside our tent, it was super close and I was so freaked out, I even woke Jeremy up and had to pee all night because there was no way I was getting outside the tent. Another night, we had all been sitting around the campfire when we heard some crazy cow noise...we came to the conclusion that either the cow was giving birth OR it was getting attacked, so, that was freaky, and it wasn't very far away from our camp. The guys ended up getting the guns out and keeping them close all night, just in case.

Having fun in the dirt!

Being a big boy and eating at the picnic table. :)

He wasn't too happy about the stickyness...

but he like the smores!! :)

Mmhmm.

Beckham and Aunt Brianna while we were making smores. :)

Overall, we loved it. I had never been camping with kids before, so I didn't really know what to expect, but they did so, so good! They love being outside no matter where we are. I have to admit, camping isn't very relaxing with little ones, but it was worth it to see them free, getting dirty, playing all day, just having fun. We don't live in the city, but we kind of do, so it was a nice break, and up on Kolob, there was no one else, just the family, and it was really nice to be away from technology and from the world for a few days.

I love this picture. He got SO so dirty, you can see the handprints on his face...this is when he was getting tired and rubbed his hands down his face, ha ha.