Cold Camping

As one of our final summer activities, Jason talked me into 2 nights of camping. I actually like to camp, but after many failed attempts, I have grown adverse to camping with a baby. I had planned for a quiet weekend with Autumn, but Jason looked so disappointed that his great vision of family togetherness would not come true, that I caved. Luckily his parents and their trusty trailer had signed up, so I felt confident as we loaded up and headed up I70 to Turquoise Lake, near Leadville.

















We were there about 15 minutes before every child was covered in dirt and Jason was beaming with satisfaction. I decided to try a new campfire meal, marinated kabobs. It turned out great, except the fact that I didn't have a good method for turning them. No need to fret, Papa Ed fears no fire, and flipped them with his bare hands. (Once again upping his position on the mountain man scale)





The Lake was incredible. Pure glass each morning (not to mention, cold as ice all day) and full of plenty of fish for us to catch. Poor Jaxen couldn't stand to watch them suffer, so we released them all back to lake. (I must admit that I was relieved as well, it just makes me sad)












We froze at night as the temperature plummeted to 30 degrees each night. I ended up sharing a cozy night with both Elijah and Autumn snuggled close---I must say, I totally loved it.

There were so many great little moments. Jason was right, it is worth all of the trouble and mess to get away from all of the distractions. We could just relax and focus on each other for a while.

After that, it was time to get ready for school. I always brain storm my new battle plans for getting everyone off, getting all of my work done and how to meet all of our demands without turning into psycho mom. The game plan this year.....LESS DRILL SARGEANT MOM...LESS MULTI-TASKING...and MORE ONE ON ONE. It's not perfect, but I feel like I'm getting better. It's so much pressure being the mom. My mood runs the whole house and sometimes my mood ain't so great. In my head I repeat "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" It will all get done in due time.