My kind of camping..

This was it. Our last summer shindig. One last family outing before we wrap up this summer. Its been a grand summer. Its not like we went on any huge vacations or anything, it was just the small and simple activities that we made a point of doing. I think we all know the one area of parenting that I am passionate about it is making sure my boys have a little book of memories to look back on. I think we added a few good ones this summer.

Friday night we packed up a few belongings and hit the road for a little overnighter. By a few belongings I of course mean half of our house. My husband loves me. I have never claimed to be a light packer.

First stop was Pepperbelly's with Ash and Souli. I had never been before. Service was ridiculously slow, food was ridiculously good. Loved it.

Oh this boy. He is a nut. Have I mentioned his bizarre fascination with arms. I had Thiago take this close up so you could see what I am talking about. He has this nervous/scared/tired habit of holding our arm. In this exact spot. He will make me bend my arm in a certain way so he can hold it just like this. So weird, so weird. He had just got in trouble by his dad and was feeling sad. He wandered over to me to get some comfort.

We then headed to Cherry Hill. My kind of camping. Bathrooms, showers, clean, close to home and connected to a huge water park. Perfect. Only problem is sleeping on the ground, but what do you do. That is camping after all. Pretty late by the time we arrived, the rest of my family was already there. We had to scramble to get our tent put up.

We had some excited little campers.

We gathered everyone together and went to do some mini golf.

Ever mini golfed with 10 young children? Insanity. All you need to know. I have no idea what was what, who was where, who had a ball, what color was who, who's turn it was....it was chaos. And they loved every gosh darn minute of it. Those kids were floating on air that night. They were all so happy. Well, almost all. Lincoln, yikers...that kid takes mini golf serious. We all got the biggest laugh out of him, he is the king of temper tantrums when that ball didn't go where instructed. When I tried to show him the correct way to hold his club he said to me and I qoute "you get out of here, I am a big boy and can do it myself, now go away". Hmmm. Alrighty.

Back to our tent...nighty night.

Next morning...I slept like total crap, thanks for asking.

My kids on the other hand slept great. Not one of them stirred until 8:00 the next morning.

I didn't know if this one was ever going to wake up.

Breakfast was so good. My uncle made the french toast and Deano made the bacon and scrambled eggs. I tried not to eat a whole lot since we were swimming all day and that requires looking somewhat thin in a swimsuit, it was rough.

After breakfast, we packed up our camp. Ha! Yep, one quick night of camping and that was plenty for me.

On to the swimming...

Such a fun place. They have a pirate cove/kiddie pool, lazy river, large swimming pool, a rapid tube ride, and then a couple of water slides. We had a blast.

My little boys loved the pirate cove, thought the pirate ship was the coolest thing ever.

Lunchtime came before we knew it.

My fruit lovin' boy. Ate almost this whole bowl of raspberries by himself.

This baby cracks me up. The minute he sees my camera lately, this is the smile I am rewarded with. Ahh, love this kid.

Baby and dad nap time.

This slide was so much fun. We had the best time on it. At first we just took Carson, we thought Linc wouldn't like it. Carson could have stayed on this slide all day long. He absolutely loved it. We finally decided to try Lincoln as well. So freaking cute. They both had the best time. So glad my kids are so willing to try new things, they are just a blast to hang out with.

We then headed over to the big water slides. Spent like 2 hours on those. So much fun. Kids all fought to go with Thiago. I stuck to the nice, slow, easy going slide...not Thiago he chose the fast one and perfected the way to zoom down that sucker. Cannot believe how fast he came flying out of that thing. He always had a kid with him and as he came out of the slide he would hold the kid high up in the air, kinda like on Lion King when they hold up the baby cub. It was just the funniest thing to see. He was trying to keep them out of the water and it worked. It was just so funny to witness.

We didn't leave until about 6:00 that night. These were my kids on the 20 minute car ride home. They were wiped out.

What a great weekend!