Porter Family Camping Weekend of Fun: Day 1

We planned a weekend of camping with all of my family.  Everyone was able to get work off and it would be the first time my nephews went camping.  My dad wanted to take us to Bloomington Lake were we went last year for a day trip.  Since it got warm late this year, there was still snow up there so we had to come up with a plan B.  We decided to go up Paris Canyon.  My parents went up a few days before we were to set out on the camping trip to find us a good spot.  They found a great spot but told us to bring mosquito spray.  We got up there Friday morning and could not believe the amount of mosquitoes up there.  I've never seen anything like it.  We had fogger that we sprayed Friday night and we were constantly spraying ourselves with bug spray for 3 days.

Here's how Josh dealt with the mosquitoes.  The poor guy swells up so big when he gets bit by one.

We got up to camp and got everything set up.  Josh and I slept in the back of our Jeep.  We don't tent camp much anymore since we can fit back there, plus we can turn the heat on during the night when we get cold.

Branson and Gavin loved it!  Branson was excited to sleep in a tent at night with him mom and dad.

My mom and I took Branson for a little hike to see what was around us.  He found a big rock that he fell in love with.  He thought he was the coolest thing standing up on top of it.

Gavin is a crazy baby and into every.thing.  Constantly.  And he loves loves loves to hang on Josh.

He is so cute.

My dad was so cute and found Branson some "dinosaur" bones.  The kid is obsessed with dinosaurs and dragons.  He showed everyone his bone that Papa found him.

My dad got the fire going to try to get the mosquitoes to go away and to get dinner going.  We roasted hot dogs Friday night.  Dad has lots of helpers to get the fire going!

After we ate, the boys got changed into their jammies and we all sat around the fire.  Gavin went out pretty quickly.

Branson thought it was time to make "Bamma" be a monkey.  It was hilarious!  She had to go cross-eyed and make monkey sounds.  We tried to teach him how to make the sounds, too.  We had to do monkey motions with our arms, which apparently I didn't get right according to Branson.

 As it got later, the fire got bigger.  I love sitting around a campfire in the dark, it's hypnotizing.

My dad, brother and Brian decided that it would be a good idea to go walking down to the Ice Caves...in the dark.  We sat around the fire for a little while waiting for them to come back.  Then we started hearing what sounded like wolves howling but we knew it was them, still made me nervous though.  They finally got back and Josh and I went to bed.  We got woken up at about 1:30 in the morning to Jade and Brittiney's car doors opening and closing since they were right by us.  The boys were crying and were cold in their tent so they took them home.