Why can't we camp?!

Two years ago Byron and I purchased a cute little pop-up camper.  Our thought for that was that it would be easier to go camping in a camper with younger kids than it would be in a tent.  We haven't used the camper all that many times, and I think we have only had 1 successful camping trip in it.

Once again, we decided to try and go camping with the kids.  Because of our trip to Illinois in July and then other weekends being full of other stuff, we made a plan to go camping on August 16th.  Now that we had a date, we needed a location.  Because we haven't had success in the past, we wanted a place to camp near a house or hotel if we needed to bail on the whole camping thing.  We decided on Hoosier Pass.  We had been hiking up there a few years ago and knew that there were some great camping spots near lower Crystal Lake, so  our goal was that.  And if things went south, we were literally 5 minutes away from my parents house.  We couldn't make it to the lake, so we found another campsite close by.  We set up our camper, the kids were great.  It was a little chilly, but not terrible.  I started to make the fire and that's when it happened.  The sign of - pack up and leave now or you're going to regret it.  It started to sprinkle rain.

I looked at Byron and started laughing....what the heck?!  It hadn't rained in so long - WHY does it have to start now!?  Why on the one camping trip of the year does it have to rain?

We loaded the kids up into the camper and had dinner.  The kids had fun.  We played card games and then turned on our DVD player and watched a movie.  Because it was raining when it was time for the kids to go to bed, B and I went to bed too.

It was AWFUL!  It poured down rain.  There was lightning thunder; let me say it again, it poured down rain!  At one point I asked Byron if he wanted to just put the kids in the truck and drive down to the house, but we decided to wait it out.

That was the worst night sleep ever!  Carter didn't stay in his sleeping bag so every time I moved I felt his face and his cheeks and nose were like ice cubes.

Here's us shortly after waking up - we all look like one hot mess!

We got up in the morning, had breakfast in the camper and then decided to try and hike to Crystal Lake.  It was sunny and not a cloud in the sky!  Again - WHY must it be like this when we try to camp? The hike was great and we had a good time.

Once we got back to our campsite, we started packing things up and trying to dry out the camper.  Once that dried out, we headed down the pass to my parents house to hang out at for the rest of the weekend.  B and I have decided that IF we get the itch to go camping, we are going to find a touristy place in Colorado that we haven't been, rent a hotel room and go that route.   Once the kids are older, we can try the camping out in the "wilderness" again!