Enchanted Rock

Aaron and I have been wanting to go camping for a long time. We've talked about it, planned for it, talked about it some more, looked at campsites, waited, decided it would be better for Aaron and the big kids to go, then finally just pulled the trigger and booked a spot at Enchanted Rock. This is a park about 2 hours away from us near Fredricksburg with a lot of hiking and and most famously, Enchanted Rock, the highest spot you can hike to in all of Texas? (At least this part of Texas). We spent a lot of the weeks before leaving getting everything we needed ready to go. Camping is a lot of work folks, a lot of work. We had to get a lot of gear we didn't have and packing food, geez, that took a long time. But the kids were thrilled and we finally loaded up the car and head out. 

The drive down took awhile but we were happy with our camp site when we arrived. It was nice, we had a table and some shade and a nice fire pit. There were plenty of other campers and we were pretty close to the bathrooms. The kids started playing with some other kids who were there immediately. 

After we set up camp and did some exploring it was time to make dinner. Hot dogs and tin foil dinners. 

The kids devoured their food, each of them ate two dogs. 

Brooke had rice cereal. :)

Then of course we all had s'mores. They were delicious. 

(Don't be fooled by Camilla's happy grin, she didn't eat hers.)

Then it was my favorite part, it got dark. We got out our lamps and flashlights and had so much fun. The kids took them to the playground and chased each other around and played tag. 

Then we all piled on the blanket to watch the stars, mother nature is beautiful.

The sleeping was, well it was what it was. The kids slept like rocks, which is the best we could hope for. Aaron and I were counting down the minutes until sunrise. It was so cold when we woke up so Aaron built another fire in the morning. (Can I get a shout out for my husband who built two fires!)

We didn't have room in our tent for Brooke to sleep in the pack n' play at night but she did nap there during the day, such a good baby. 

Then after a hearty breakfast we were ready to hike. We did about 4 miles, that is a long time. It was a beautiful day and the kids get 4 stars, seriously they were champs. 

This little boy hiked the whole time and did awesome. He was in charge of finding the trail markers and keeping count of them. 

Josie had probably the best day of her life. She was all over the place, finding water and going crazy. 

Aaron did a lot of carrying on his back. 

We took the long, back way to get to Enchanted Rock. 

After the hike we were all exhausted and hungry, so we packed up camp, got in the car while I passed out lunch and we devoured every morsel of food left in the car. 

It took many showers, baths, and about 5 loads of laundry to get us clean again but I am declaring our camping trip a success! We had a great time and like Aaron said as we were all cuddled up in the tent going to sleep, "there are worse ways to spend your life."