Patagonia Lake

We've been planning a camping trip for a while. The first weekend we were going to go Rachel woke up sick in the wee hours of the morning of the day we were going to be camping, so we postponed for a week. The next week it was going to be super windy and not warm enough to swim, and since we were going to Patagonia Lake we thought it would be nice to go when it's warm enough to swim. So we postponed again. A YW campout and the RRC picnic pushed it back a couple more weeks, and finally the first weekend of May we went. It was windy again and not going to be all that warm, but we had postponed long enough, so we went anyway. The kids were ready to go long before Dad got home. They were playing with the camera while they waited for him to get home. Here's one of the kids' "Yay! Dad's home!" pictures.

 And then we were off.

 We managed to get the tent set up despite the wind and roasted some hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire before the kids were serenaded to sleep by the mariachi music our neighbors were playing for all of the campers to enjoy. (They had a hard time falling asleep because of the music, but thankfully a ranger came by and told them quiet hours had started at 9:00 and they needed to turn it off so by the time the adults went to sleep it was quiet.)

All the kids except Megan slept well. Megan came and slept next to me for most of the night, which helped her sleep some, but negatively affected my quality of sleep. Luckily I go camping with very low expectations, so I slept about as good as I expected to. I woke up with the sun, started a fire and hot chocolate for the kids to enjoy as they woke up.

Megan was especially cute.

 Ryan woke up to use the facilities around 5am and I was afraid he wouldn't go back to sleep because it was fully light. But he turned out to be the longest sleeper of the group.

 We had scrambled eggs (omelets for the adults) in a bag and toast for breakfast. Then Rachel sat around reading the book I had brought for myself. Thief.

 After we had camp mostly packed up we went on a walk to the kids' favorite bridge.

 After our walk, the kids had some fun on the beach and wading in the water up to their knees. I didn't bring swimsuits because it wasn't very warm. And I was glad to not have suits because the kids would have swum anyway, and I would have had to go into that frigid water with them.

 They were perfectly content searching for treasures and playing with the sand toys we brought. We ate lunch on the ride home and got home in time for Megan to get a decent nap in. Overall, it was a camping success.