Camping in October

I LOVE to camp. Matthew likes it. Perhaps it is because my family camped a lot when I was growing up. So we try to camp with our family at least once a year. Matthew likes to wait until early fall because his least favorite part of camping is the bugs. This year, I wondered if we had missed our last opportunity to camp. We had been watching the weather, and it seemed that every nice evening we had plans. FINALLY it worked out and we packed up tents and sleeping bags and food and water and headed to a quiet area of the farm next to the pasture. 

It was a Wednesday evening, and we didn't get to the campsite until 6 p.m. First priority was to get the tent set up and then make fire so we could cook supper. 

When we woke in the morning, Matthew got to work building the fire. There watching us on our little camping trip was a wayward cow that had reached through the fence and broke the barbed wire. So, Matthew drove her back into the pasture and spent a long time fixing fence while I made breakfast. 

This pretty much sums up our camping trip: We ate late, but nobody seemed to mind. We got to bed late, but nobody seemed to mind. We slept as well as you sleep on the ground, but nobody seemed to mind. Success. 

Ever since Jeffrey introduced us to pie irons, we do most of our campfire cooking with them. We had pepperoni pizzas for supper -- a family favorite.

Here is a perfectly toasted pizza pie!

Our "facilities" for the trip. This works great for kids who haven't mastered the squat technique yet. Enough said.

Matthew has two headlamps, and they were always being used. I think for Christmas, each of the kids might find their own in their stocking so we can all enjoy hands-free lighting!

Can you camp without S'mores? We usually make pies for dessert in our pie irons, but we only had pumpkin pie in our cupboard (this was a spontaneous trip) and I wasn't sure how that would go over.

So, Matthew whittled us some roasting sticks and we ate half a bag of roasted marshmallows!!!

Our sunrise. Too often our mornings are so busy that I forget that God puts on a show like this every morning! Awesome!

Bacon tastes SOOO good cooked over a fire. 

And eggs to go with the bacon!

When we went to bed, it was such a pleasant evening. By morning the wind had increased speed and was battering our tent. It stood, but the wind tested it. The girls did NOT like how loud it was inside the tent. You cannot imagine how thankful I am that we didn't find ourselves in a thunderstorm!