We went camping this past weekend at the Sand Dunes in southern Colorado. It was very fun and very exhausting. I even remembered that I had a camera, so there are lots of pictures!
We camped starting late Thursday night. Friday morning, Annie was very dirty in no time!
We'd been busy moving campsites that morning, and before we were quite done Annie informed me that she wanted her diaper changed, and this is how she did it!
I really did find her face under all that dirt once I got my hands on some wipes.
To the Medano River!
Jim's first attempt at building a dam wasn't so successful...
Brooklyn...that muddy sand feels so good!
A shovel and pail were the perfect thing for this trip! Annie spent a long time just putting sand in her bucket and dumping it out to do it all again.
Cute Lincoln
We marooned Alex on his very own island in the middle of the river.
He was a good sport about it even though it should have been naptime.
Put two engineers together, plus a whole bunch of kid sized helpers and you make a much better dam!
I LOVED that this water was so shallow all throughout: it felt good, and no one was going to drown!
Washing that sand off afterwards was no easy task!
They totally rerouted the main part of the water with their hard work. Good job!
We went back to camp after playing in the water, but none of the kids would rest, so our friends took off to see the Visitor's Center. It wasn't long before we decided to take a drive ourselves so the kids could rest. They were asleep before we'd even buckled everybody up! We drove to Alamosa, and they slept until I jumped out of the car to grab something at Safeway. Much to my surprise Jim appeared in the store with all three kids in a cart and sent me to the bathroom with them while he bought the food. I don't know why I agreed to that arrangement. The moment we entered the bathroom, Logan started screaming his head off and Alex started crying. We were unbelievably filthy, wearing our rattiest mismatched clothing, and Annie's hair was standing straight up. There were other women in the bathroom, all of whom were staring at us. In an effort to seem like a decent mother, I mumbled something about having been camping and the kids were tired, and then got out of there as fast as I could!
Saturday morning, the kids played in the dirt while the grown-ups packed the cars. In this picture, Logan is saying, "I need an ambulance!" His finger was hurting for an unknown reason, and because he was so tired from the day and two nights before it was the end of the world!
Sweet Avy
I think we could have re-named Lincoln to be "Rock Biter". Everytime we turned around he had a rock in his mouth! He definitely got a taste of some extra minerals!
Happy Brooklyn
To the dunes! We did a dry run on Saturday. (Jim and Cameron also did a dry run on Friday night after everyone was in bed; they went to the top!)
Logan and I went climbing by ourselves, and he chose that hill in the background to be the first one we would run down. It was the steepest hill we saw that day, but we did indeed go down it. I held Logan's hand and sort of dragged him down on his bottom at really a pretty rapid pace. He loved it! We ended up climbing almost halfway to the high point, and Logan wanted to keep going! He's quite the little hiker!
From a distance, I saw that Jim and Annie were doing some climbing too, so I zoomed in with the camera and got this shot. It was actually pretty impressive how far Annie went with him.
Cameron and Lincoln went for a little walk too. (So did Brooklyn and Cameron earlier; they got about halfway up to the high point!)
That sand was really hot!
Rachael was sweet enough to hold Alex for us while we went on our little adventure. She even put him to sleep! (But he woke up the moment I took him!)
More sand to clean off of this little girl! (After their baths that night, there was a layer of sand on the bottom of the tub!)
Rachael with her girls and Alex.
After playing on the dunes, we had lunch and got in the cars to drive to a spot where we could take a short hike to see a waterfall. All six kids were asleep long before we arrived at the trailhead, and they didn't wake up when we got there so we decided to forego it and head home. Moments after we'd turned around Logan woke up wanting to know if we were going to the waterfall. We'd promised, so we turned back around and woke up Annie and Alex. Our friends weren't going to wake up their kids, but they had the same thing happen so they turned around too.
The hike was only 1/2 a mile, and it was so very cool up by the creek! It felt so good to be near that cold water and in the shade! The kids loved putting their hands in the water and throwing rocks in it. Annie walked into it twice, and knelt down in it once; she was really surprised at how cold it was!
Family photo time!
The waterfall was actually in a cave, and you had to do a little climbing and wading to get to it. Only Jim, Logan, and Cameron went in because it was too much for most of the kids. Jim said it was totally worth it, though.
We headed home after the hike, and had quite the drive! Our car broke down multiple times on the side of the highway/ interstate! We somehow made it back, but stopped at my mom's house instead of going home so that Jim could make an attempt to fix the car. We think he fixed it (our engine light is still on, but we haven't had the same problem driving it), but we didn't actually get home until 11pm that night.
When we got ready for church yesterday, we were amazed at the mosquito bites on the kids. Even though we were using bug spray, we still had a bad time with those bugs! People at church wanted to know if our kids and our friends' kids had chicken pox!
Annie even got a little bit of sunburn in addition to the bug bites! Apparantly I didn't use quite enough sunscreen either!
Our poor tired children! Between two nights of camping, getting home late Saturday night, no naps for three days, and getting home late last night again (we'd gone to Jim's parent's house to celebrate a birthday) everyone needed a day to recuperate. Jim had to go to work, but the kids and I stayed home all day. The kids and Jim have all been asleep for the last couple of hours. (Thank heavens Jim gets off of work during naptime!) This is my view of the sleepy heads in the living room:
