Camping--or not

Last week we decided to go camping down at Patagonia Lake. After quite a bit of prep work (and telling Jake that next time we go camping he has to take the day before we go off to help me get ready) we headed down. We got there 10 minutes after the last campsite was taken. Boo. There would have been plenty of campsites, except they had roped off 35 because they are upgrading them to campsites with electricity. No one was doing any work on them, and there weren't wires sticking up all over the place. In fact, it looked like they hadn't even started any of the "upgrades" aside from roping off the area. But we couldn't camp there because of the stinkin' rope. Yes, I was a little peeved. Note all the junk piled high that took hours to get ready:

We decided to stick around and enjoy the afternoon by the lake anyway. I took Rachel out in my parents' raft. She wasn't a huge fan, mainly because the life jacket was uncomfortable.

Rachel preferred playing in the swimming area, and trying splash whoever was fool enough to go play with her. I gave Rachel a plastic cup to use in building a sand castle, but she promptly recognized it's potential for carrying water and chased us around (mostly Grandma Knight) trying to throw water on us.

Annie is always quite a fan of the outdoors. Though she was getting a bit sleepy here:

The sand castle Rachel and I made:

Rachel enjoyed the boat much more when it was on land and she was free of the life jacket.

We stayed at the lake long enough to cook and eat our tin foil dinners and roast some marshmallows in one of the grills there. Roasting marshmallows (or at least eating them) was probably the highlight of the whole trip for Rachel. It was certainly what she looked forward to the most. After all the fun in the sun we packed up and headed home. Not to have our plans completely thwarted, we set up the tent in the back yard and slept out anyway, except Annie, who got to stay in her own comfy crib.

Rachel absolutely LOVED sleeping in a tent. And she didn't wake up once, which only happens maybe 50% of the time in her own bed. Maybe I should let her sleep in a tent every night. :)
There is a ward campout coming up in July, so our camping adventures will continue, hopefully some place besides our back yard next time.