a word about camping

So last weekend was the big Hansen family reunion. I have spent the last week trying to recover, and therefore haven't been able to write about it. {Not really. I was just searching for my camera in order to show some pictures of the lovely ordeal}

We packed up our bags and headed up to Montana to meet up with the whole fam damily.

And just so you know....I am not a camper. As in, I never go camping and don't really understand how someone could call "leaving-all-of-life's-modern-conveniences" a vacation. But nevertheless, I went.

And had a pretty good time, I must say.

The ride up there was nice. We left modern civilization and kept heading deeper and deeper into sagebrush covered hills when we finally turned a corner and before us lay a beautiful, tree-covered oasis. (seriously-in all that sagebrush it really did look like an oasis...minus the palm trees)

We drove and drove and drove and finally pulled up to the lovely campsite. I'll tell you what, I have never been so happy to see an outhouse in my life. Kolton had been tormenting me about what particular modern conveniences we would have to leave behind (read: toilets) and I was just a bit nervous. However, when we pulled into the campsite and I saw that outhouse, my outlook on the weekend brightened considerably.

Anyway...

Kolton and I went to scout out a campsite to pitch our tent and stumbled onto the prettiest little clearing we ever did see! It was a little ways away from the rest of the camp but there were trees and a little creek running right by the perfect place to pitch our tent. We just couldn't pass up that prime real estate.

That night we just visited with the family that showed up and tried to warm up by the fire. When we went back to the tent it was seriously freezing. Camping is cold, I figured out real quick. The whole weekend I had layers upon layers upon layers of clothes on. It was super attractive.

The next day we played some minute to win it games which were hilarious. The best part about them was that I went up against Kolton twice and beat him twice. He couldn't believe I'd beat him. It was a sweet, sweet victory.

For one of the games we had to stick a popsicle stick out of our mouth and stack five dice on it. Harder than it sounds. The second game we played, we each got a box of Kleenex and using one hand, had to pull every single Kleenex from the box. Holy cow, my hand was cramped by the time I got done but it was SO fun! There were lots of other games that everyone got to play and for me, that was the best part of the weekend.

Kolton also jumped on these stilts and had a few accidents...

He biffed it hard a few times and came away with a few battle wounds

That morning about the time we started playing games it also started raining.

It rained, and rained, and rained and I don't think it stopped until we pulled out of camp the next day. But we didn't let that put a damper on our plans! We went on a few motorbike and razr rides just around to explore, ate a lot of real good food, played some games, and just had a nice time chatting with family and trying to stay at least a little warm/dry {didn't really succeed in that department}.

I believe Kolton's favorite part of the weekend was the night before we went home, they passed out a few awards and he was given this:

He was quite proud of it.

On Sunday we had a little church meeting and then packed up and headed home. It was a fun weekend, but I was sure glad to be home, be warm, and take a long, hot shower.

All in all, I decided camping is pretty alright.