Camping at Mt. Charleston

After Begging all Summer, I finally MADE Jonathan take us camping. With one last weekend before school starting, I gave him no choice. ;) He had the opportunity for overtime Saturday too, but you can't put a price on camping with 3 darling kiddos!

We just stayed close to home and camped up at Mt. Charleston. I didn't think that their campgrounds would be too busy because it wasn't a holiday weekend, and well its' JUST Mt. Charleston. Turns out, it is awfully hard to get a spot. The night before I realized on recreation.gov, that just about every spot in every campground was reserved. You can't make a reservation the night before, so I knew we had to get up there early in the day for any chance of getting a spot. While Jonathan was still at work, I loaded our gear and the kids and took off.

We checked the first three campground with NO luck! :( I was told by most campground hosts that our only chance would be Old Mill. IF they had anything left. The whole mountain was PACKED! Luckily our 4th try was a charm! Old Mill had plenty of spots, but was getting full. And the down side- it used to just be a day use park. So you have to park in one spot and pack your things to your site! Bummer!!

Here I am with three whoosy kids trying to haul gear and set up camp. I did ok and the kids helped (a little). The only tuff part was packing our 50 lb cooler from the van to the spot and then setting up the tent on my own. It is huge and not your typical dome tent. I've set it up tons but you almost NEED two people to do it. I got the kids to stand on each end and hold 4 of the poles while I got in the other 2. Sweating to death and in a foul mood- Ta DA! Camp was fully set up.....beds out and all! Now, I just had to drive back down into town (25 min. away) to pick up spoiled Jonathan- who just got to come up and plop down in his camp chair, lite a fire and wait for dinner!

This is how I intended to keep the girls hair not only clean for 2 1/2 days, but out of their face no matter what!

Surprisingly it held in well and you could still smell the shampoo when we got home Sunday and pulled the top ties out! Granted- it was covered in dirt and weeds too!


That first night cooled down quick. Specially for us that are used to triple digits! It was maybe only 60* here, but the kids were "freezing".


This was Allie's first time roasting marshmallows. I guess her first time camping overall! She had a blast, but Jonathan had to help her keep it from catching fire over and over again.


She loves the attention she gets from "daddy" (so she calls him- this is her first experience with a father figure around)

Saturday afternoon, we enjoyed a nice hotdog roasted right on the fire! The kids loved getting to cook their own food each day. And really LOVED their kid sized sodas.

Day 2: Marshmallow roasting again! The kids loved it the first night so much, they wanted marshmallows for breakfast on Saturday, and for lunch and so on. They couldn't wait for Dark- since ya know....that's the ONLY time you can do it! ;) Notice- Carlaya's mouth already stuffed full!

Two happy girls who are starting to look quit dirty!

We had a blast and didn't freeze too bad, like the last time we camped at Mt. Charleston. It did get to the upper 40's at night and that is too cold for my liking. But we survived and the kids are still talking about our trip! Thanks Daddy for taking us!