A Fun Weekend Camping Up on Grand Mesa

WOW!! Well, I guess this is our camping weekend in pictures!! Though looking through these I realize one thing.....as I sheltered my camera from the incessant rain, it ends up looking like we had pretty nice weather! Quite to the contrary! We arrived at our camping spot Friday afternoon and it sprinkled on and off until evening. Our camp fire was very brief that night (I was very dissappointed as that's my favorite part of camping!) as it started to pour around 9pm. We were quite relieved to find out that our tent was rainproof, complete with it's rainfly! The four of us were all in our tent (yes, Lacey too!) all cuddled down, nice and warm and dry. It rained all night long! I only woke up one time during the night when it wasn't raining. As I lay there thoughout the night listening to the rain, I wondered if it wouldn't just be smarter to pack it all up on Saturday and go home instead of staying on until Sunday!

This is the only picture I have of James wearing short sleeves and shorts! After this he was in jeans and a turtleneck the rest of the weekend!

The first night, after being chased into bed early by the rain, thunder and lightening, James was all smiles! He loves to camp!
All bundled up against the cool, wet weather we took a walk in the woods, just the two of us!!
James has become quite a reader. He took a backpack full of books with him, just in case we had to spend a lot of time in the tent because of rain. Even though that didn't really happen, he still wanted to pull up a chair (in the middle of the forest) and read his favorite book...."Sharks and Other Sea Creatures - A Dictionary"!! I loved it!!

Because I've had several people comment that I haven't been including pictures of myself on this blog, I made an attempt to take some over the weekend! This is one of my favorites of James and me!
And here's "Dad" getting ready to make breakfast!
Love those camping meals cooked over the camp stove or campfire!! We try to keep our meals simple, but we always enjoy the expereince!
James and Dusty taking a break after breakfast. You can see part of our tent in the background.
And what would a camping trip be without smores??? I LOVE this picture of James!! This one will most definitely be scrapped! I can't get over how dirty his hands were.....just something you've got to look past while camping!! I bought a tub of "wet wipes" and we used them all the time, but the pictures tell a different story!! LOL

I set my camera on the "candlelight" setting while taking pictures of James with our campfire on Saturday night. It rained for about an hour and a half on Saturday afternoon and then the skies cleared and we had a lovely evening, cooking our dinner over the campfire, making smores and enjoying the campfire for a couple of hours before going to bed.
This was Lacey's first camping trip and she did very well!! She's now 8 months old and is so much fun to watch as she explores the world around her. The longer we have her, the more attached James becomes and they are very cute together!

While she wasn't thrilled by the thunder and lightening, she was pleased to be in the tent with us and didn't complain too much.
James is very responsible with Lacey and takes on most of the "dog chores" without being told. He walks her acouple of times a day. Here they are walking through the camp ground.

We had a long chain, so we were able to tie her up at our campsite, but she was able to roam quite a distance even on the chain. James took her for walks (without the leash) in the woods behind our site, and she was so much fun to watch as she explored.
James loves his puppy so much and is constantly entertained by her. I think she finds him entertaining as well!!
All that fresh air and activity really pooped her out!! She found a patch of sunshine to nap in!!