The Camping Disaster

We finally went camping!  We took our kids up Big Cottonwood Canyon to have an adventure.  Unfortunately, when we got to our campsite, it was raining.  Being the wonderful parents, and the fun people we are, we hopped out of the car and started setting up our tent anyway.  Once we had it up we were drenched but still having fun.  Still excited to be there.  

Then we realized we had no rain fly.  

We searched around the tent to no avail.  ("It must be at home somewhere...why wouldn't we have packed it in the tent bag??").  We saw no other option but to pack it back up and go home.  We got the tent poles all put away and started to fold up the tent itself, and there was the rain fly-perfectly dry, sitting underneath the tent ("Why didn't we check there!?").  At this point, not only was the tent soaked through, but it was still coming down pretty heavily and Ryan was in a sour mood.  There was no saving our adventure.  

So Ryan out the tent under the picnic table to be retrieved the next day and we got back in the car to head home.  Poor little Sienna was so confused.  "I wanted to roast hot dogs!  I thought we were going to sleep in a tent!"  I thought that maybe we could still do those things, at home in our backyard and so I reassured her. 

That's when the moose appeared and rescued our trip.  He came down out of the trees and onto the road in front of our car.  He walked almost all the way across the road before he stumbled, skidded on some water, hit the guard rail and went over the side of it and fell down the ravine.  It was quite hilarious to see, and Ryan immediately pulled over so we could go look at the moose and make sure it was alright. (It was).  The moose lightened our (Ryan's) mood enough that we decided to go back to the campsite and try again.  Thank you, moose!  We set our tent up again, dried it off with a blanket, and we were in business!

It was a lot of fun and that night there was an AMAZING storm.  I have never heard thunder so loud-I was even worried about a tree falling on our tent and crushing us all to death-but I loved the experience!  And somehow, our kids slept through all of it.  Even our light sleeper who can't have anyone enter his room without immediately sitting up...he was out cold all night!  A miracle!

A camping trip that we will not soon forget!

Sienna helped roast some hot dogs

Riley helped eat the hot dogs

And then he tried to ditch us for awhile..."Get back here, kid!"

Sienna helped Daddy with the tent...and I had to get a picture of that :)