Mom Of the Year

I am pretty sure that I just won Mom Of the Year. I have written my speech and everything.

I took Audra and Claire camping. By myself.

Yes, we stayed in a cabin. Yes, the cabin had a heater and the campground has real toilets with running water. But, still. I did it.

While growing up my dad would take all five of us kids camping and leave my mom to have the weekend off. I can tell you that that will not happen in this household- I will never get the weekend off while Ben takes the girls to the mountains. I love Ben, but before the trip I told him that I wanted he and Camille to come, but that if he came he could not whine, complain, or be grumpy. He had to have a smile and not worry about bedtimes and dirt. He couldn't commit to those requirements, so he stayed home with Camille.

They joined us on Saturday afternoon, and Camille was NOT happy to see us! She was so mad at us for leaving her for a night.

But, we did have a wonderful time. We went up to Golden Gate Canyon Park. We had never been there and I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I looked up my friends old blog post (Thanks, Jenny!) who had been there before to get some sort of idea of what we were heading into. Her yurt pictures were quite nice, but I was still shocked when I saw the cabin- it was awesome! It had actual beds with mattresses!Seriously, I have never in my life camped in such nice circumstances.

To cap it off, the weather was perfect, as was the company. We went with the homeschool group and the girls loved playing with the other kids. It was really, really nice. Pretty perfect, actually. The group does this camp out every year, and we will definitely go back. Next year, however, I want to stay for two nights instead of one. It is so much work, whether you go for one night or 10, so we might as well stay for a little bit longer next year. But, this year was a learning year as we figure this out.

We drove up to Panaroma Point which had gorgeous views of the mountains.

I brought up some tin foil dinners. Claire refused to eat hers because of the salt and pepper in them . She traded that for a hot dog that her friends were cooking. They got the better end of the deal.

The girls also worked hard to earn their Junior Ranger patches.

The cabins were so nice! Electricity, heater, etc. Granted, you still had to walk 50 yards to the bathroom, but these cabins were worth every penny.

It took us awhile, but I finally got a fire started. I finally remembered that I had lighter fluid- the wood didn't stand a chance!

We had some pancakes. Notice the burned one- we had one bad batch, but otherwise we ate quite well.

The girls are ready for the hike. They were actually pretty grumpy for the entire hike. They would much rather have just stayed at the campground and played with their friends. 

Love these girls!

How did she get so cute?