Camping! Finally!

June 19-21, 2009

With all the rain that has been plaguing and blessing Colorado, we haven't had a perfect weekend to go camping. It finally arrived!!! We packed up tons of good food, all our gear and headed to Painted Rocks campground near Manitou Lake. This is Jadeyn's 5th time camping, but his first time since he has been able to walk! Big Difference! HE LOVED IT! From day two after he was born, he was happiest outdoors, so he was in heaven!

A perfect camping spot has nice trees and beauty, a great fishing spot and some mountain biking. This place had all three. We biked to the lake and there was some awesome fishing to be found. Nice little lake trout, but lots of them. We had some fun with catch and release, but ended up keeping three and accidentally feeding one to the seagulls which was pretty noisy!

Jadeyn loved the lake. Kevin fished while I chased the little guy around and kept him from running straight out into the water. He loved to squish his feet in the mud. We knew that he would get dirty and were excited to let him have free rein of the place, but I really didn't think that he could get this dirty! It was great! He played so happily in the pineneedles and dirt. After about an hour of fishing, Jadeyn decided it was naptime and crashed right on the shore by daddy's fishing bag!

Jadeyn caught his first fish!! He loved helping dad bring in the line and was so excited when there was a fishy flopping around on the other end. He would squish the slimy fish and laugh!



We finally broke down and bought a "family tent." A nice REI Kingdom 6 with a room divider so we could separate Jadeyn a bit from us. Not for privacy, but if he could see us, there's no way he would sleep! He ended up being the perfect sleeper in a tent. We bundled him up in his jammies and his sleep sack. He fell asleep promptly after 8am and slept until 5:20 (typical) the first night and 6:30 (amazing father's day gift!) the second night! I guess we really wore him out!

Ouch! We only had one incident which is amazing considering all the activities we did and the uneven ground that we did them on. Jadeyn tripped on a root and took a header into the picnic table bench. I didn't think that a bump could swell as quickly as this one did. It was almost instantly about 1/3 of an inch raised. Poor kid! He cried four about a minute and a half while we iced it, then he was off and playing again!

What a fun trip and what a great way to spend Father's Day! The summer is flying by so fast and we are sad to have our camping weekends limited! But lots more fun to be had!!