When You Camp with My Sister…

…you camp in STYLE!!!! Tom and I have been meaning to take Emily camping, well, forever (she’d never been), but we’ve never actually made it happen. So when my sister asked if we wanted to take a girls’ trip with Emily and I and her and her daughters this summer, we jumped at the chance! (This post is picture heavy because there were too many memories that were too good to omit!)

My sister packed nearly EVERYTHING—she has camping down to a science. All we needed were our clothes, toiletries, sleeping bags/pillows, and our tent. She took care of everything else. Even and endless supply of glow-sticks and games for the kids and camping cosmo glasses for the adults because she and I, well, we do like our cosmos…

We had a blissfully wonderful time! The site she and her older daughter chose was absolutely PERFECT—a little slopey (but not bad at all), but large and private and not too far from the bathrooms or water, with plenty of places for the kids to play.

The next morning we woke up after a sound (and more comfortable than home, I might add, due to our old mattress at home versus her blow-up mattress in our tent) sleep, and had a delightful breakfast of pancakes and bacon with coffee and orange juice before we headed out to explore the grounds. We found a way to get down to the creek where the girls could climb around on the rocks; it was gorgeous!

We went back to our site after that to relax for the rest of the evening and have dinner.

But that was about when the only negative part of the trip really settled in—the yellowjackets became pretty persistent. They especially seemed to love my sweet niece, getting tangled in her hair, even! We tried giving them their very own special meal further from our site to lure them away, but though a few were intrigued, the bulk of them preferred to hang out with us.

At any rate, we made dinner (the dinner I planned wasn’t NEARLY as picturesque as hers, but it was yummy just the same—one of our favorite meals as a kid, our mom’s teriyaki steak recipe!) and as darkness came the yellowjackets finally left us alone to enjoy our evening. (By the way—I think my sister might have missed her calling as a food stylist!)

The next morning it was as if the yellowjackets wanted to be sure we’d not feel TOO bad about having to head back to reality, because they became utterly relentless. The girls were playing up on the hill behind our site while my sister and I washed the last of the dishes, when suddenly Miss S came flying down the hill, having been stung several times and with the yellowjackets still clinging angrily to her. As fast as we swiped them off, they dove back in. It was horrible! We hid the kids in the car and took down the rest of the site and packed up as fast as humanly possible, loaded up Miss S with Benadryl and Advil, and got the heck out of there.

Up until that morning it was an utterly PERFECT trip; I wonder if that campground is normally swarming with yellowjackets or if it was an anomaly? It was so quiet and peaceful and blissful in every other way that I am not sure what to think. I’d so like to go again, maybe next time with BOTH of our families!