Family Camping Trip

We couldn't let a summer go by without a camping trip, even though I spent a week at camp and we traveled what seemed like a lot this summer already! Sadly the first chance we got was Collin's second day back to school, so this was an extra quick trip since we couldn't leave until after 4:00 that afternoon.

We camped at Ten Mile campground, which is the first campground you get to past Idaho City...which is about an hour away from Boise. It was the perfect amount of a drive to feel like we got away without really going too far away. The campground was all but deserted--I think there were 2 other camp sites out of like 12 being used on a Friday night. I guess in that way it paid to wait until late in the summer to go! There had been big fires outside of Sun Valley and other more central Idaho locations not long before so that probably deterred people too. It wasn't hazy at all where we were (unless you really looked off into the distance), and everything was really green and beautiful. Or maybe it just seemed super nice to me since it was our first and only mountains getaway for the whole summer! Anyway, we made a short trip. Not even 24 hours. We got there about 5:30pm and we were on our way home by 1:00 the next afternoon! But it really reminded me of how much this girl loves camping!

This one LOVES the dirt, as I know I've mentioned before. She was literally in heaven with nothing but dirt everywhere! This was only like 20 minutes after we got there...she is still clean in this one!

We had a yummy dinner of rotisserie chicken and macaroni salad (that's right, we decided to not even bother with cooking on this trip, dinner was courtesy of Winco!), the only problem was we had a small swarm of bees that were trying to take over our dinner. So we ended up eating by the campfire.

Nothing but dirt to play in....and COOKIES to eat? Could this trip get any better?

And then there was our dog..... she is such a priss it took her a few hours before she would even sit down in the dirt. Funny how our kid loves it and our dog hates it.

 So funny story-we heated up some water to wash hands and faces in the morning and Ashlyn really enjoyed keeping her hands warm in it. Which was fine...until literally right after Collin took this picture she managed to fall backwards and dump the entire bucket all over herself! Enough that it scared the crap out of her and she probably thought she was drowning! I was right there so it wasn't anything dangerous...but a huge pain to change her clothes for the 3rd time that morning and get the mud out of her hair! ha ha. Even with the insane extra amounts of clothes I thought I packed for her, we barely had enough. And it was an 18-hour trip! Another lesson learned about camping with a kid I guess! The funny thing I was telling Collin about was all the memories I have of camping as I was growing up.... I seem to remember at least one kid falling into the creek each day and being so sad because their shoes were wet...so they'd change into their "extra" pair, and then of course those would end up wet too. Dad must have had to be rolling his eyes big time!! (do you remember this, siblings?)

Ashlyn LOVED the tent. Until we informed her it was time to go to sleep, of course. Then she decided she hated the tent and wanted to "get out." too bad kid, too bad. She got over that and did eventually sleep until about 5:30am... then she was up bouncing off the walls and ready to "play outside." But we went into this expecting this to happen, so it's all good!

This was an awesome accidental shot I got... she had a great time playing with the flashlights too!

We tried to go on a little hike after we had packed up but before we headed home....this was the point where we began to see the effects of the toddler that had only slept half her usual amount the night before. Thus the blanket that had to come along on the hike. We probably only hiked like a mile before our trail ended so we just gave up on that and headed into Idaho City.....for ice cream!

Any time we have ever camped near this town it's tradition to get ice cream! They have a cute little sweet shop that has lots of yummy treats. I got Rocky Road and Collin got Huckleberry..... turns out Ashlyn only wanted to share his.....darn that was rough luck. ;)

"I love dirt!"