Camping

We took the kids camping this weekend, and we all had a blast. Aaron and I were kicking ourselves for not going earlier in the summer. There's not going to be another chance to go before the baby comes (3 weeks from Tuesday!!!), so we'll have to wait until next summer. We were worried before we went that the kids would be bored and we'd be having to try to entertain them to entire time, but we shouldn't have. They found so much to keep them busy. We went to a place called Jemez, which is about an hour and a half from where we live, and it's not at all like most of New Mexico. It's at about 7000 ft, and the campsite we were at was surrounded by conifers. There was a pretty little stream running through the campground and a lake and a waterfall close by. The weather was about as perfect as you could ask for: pleasantly warm (but not hot) during the day; just cool enough in the evening that sitting around the fire is nice; and chilly enough in the morning that you want to stay in your sleeping bag, but it's not miserable when you have to get up. We left after work on Friday and got there just in time to set up camp and get dinner going before it got dark. On Saturday we made breakfast in the dutch oven and explored the stream while it was cooking. Later we took a little hike to view the waterfall, and Aaron took Katie the rest of the way to go wading by the falls while Mom and Paul played in the dirt and rocks. We got home just in time to take naps on Saturday afternoon. Everyone was very tired, but very happy. Here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip: