Finally the Return of the Cheesy Cousin Campout

Playing at the beach!

Somebody convinced Robert to dig a really deep hole at the top of the dune and then we put the kids in, one by one. None of them went to China though.

More cute pix of cute girls.

Hailey and two "lost boys" at the top of the dune.

All the daddy's breakin' it down to "Party in the USA"!

Hugging cousins are better than Kissing one's, right?

Sophie's best "Thriller" impression.

The Three amigos. They sure had fun digging in the dirt and throwing stuff in the fire.

Annie and Katie played barbies in the van while we loaded up the tents.

Sophie is going to help Uncle Steve set up his tent.

I wish I had more of this right now. Yum Yum! Laura's Pot pie in the dutch oven. Prepared and cooked to perfection!

Last weekend we finally arranged to go camping with Robert and Laura and Hailey and Steve. We went to Warren Dunes State Park, the same park we visited on Memorial Day. It's nice because it's half way between us and Chicago. Only 1 hr and 1/2 for each of us!

Unfortunately, the day we went camping it was brutally hot and humid and then it began raining that night and rained all the way until noon the next day. Thankfully, we had great company and sound tents that kept us all dry. The clean up was fairly brutal however.

We met up around 5pm on Friday evening and each brought our own dinners (Laura made the BEST chicken pot pie in the dutch oven. I skipped out on my lame foil dinner and had some of her fabulous pie!). Steve made the most amazing cobbler and we brought ice cream to accompany it. I have been wishing for more of that cobbler ever since!! I've gotta get a dutch oven!

We took showers in an attempt to cool off before bed. I don't know how much it helped though, I ended up with dozens (sadly, not an exaggeration)of mosquito bites, especially on my heels. Miserable. Anyhow, then we went to bed after being shushed by the ranger (at 10:30pm). You know how rowdy a bunch of mormons with small children can get after the kids are down!

The rain was loud on the tent all night long and I'm pretty sure none of us slept much. The next morning it rained off and on torrentually but I set up the beach umbrella over the table and made lots of bacon and doughnuts and Robert made some great pancakes and eggs and hot cocoa! It really was fun! Taylor did burn himself (of course, that kid won't listen and has burnt himself more times than I've cut myself, and that's saying something). But he didn't cry forever about it so things are looking up.

After breakfast we spent some quality time in our new tent playing Uno and charades. Craig did a great impression of somebody getting their finger melted off in hot lava.... we don't really know where that came from, but it was fun!

Thankfully about 11:30am it quit raining so we could pack up our tents. Then we headed over to the dune and climbed to the top and played in the cool sand. It was nice that it was still overcast because the humidity was thick! After climbing the dune, we came back down and had a picnic lunch at the cars. Robert and Laura headed back to Chicago and Hailey, Steve, Craig and I and the kids stayed and played at the beach for a couple hours. It did clear up and was a gorgeous day at the beach by the time we left!

It was so fun to get together with everybody. I would love to do it again sometime soon! It's so wonderful to have family close enough to see on a regular basis!