Campin'

We went camping this weekend! It was the first of the season. It seems like our summers usually get planned out from May to September! We might not get to go too much this summer but we have plenty of other things planned out.
Our favorite place to camp right now is a place called Hermit Park outside of Estes Park. When Nolan and I were dating the park was owned by HP. Nolan was doing and internship and we went camping with a few friends from work. Now it is owned by Larimer county. They are trying to keep the same feel of the park. The campsites are all spread out and you can barely see your neighbors, not like a parking lot! We got a site in one of the new areas they opened this year. The site was at the top of a hill with a lot of fun rocks for the kiddos to play on.
We headed out on Friday after Nolan got off work. Our friends the Baldwins were also coming Friday night. They got there a little before us. We have a pop-up trailer and the Baldwins have a tent. They turned around about 3 times because of rain before they decided to stay and camp. Emily made a great dinner of tacos. We had a good night of roasting marshmallows.
The next day Nolan made breakfast (sausage, pancakes and eggs). He loves camp cooking! The kids played and we were about to go into Estes Park for lunch when the Pippins showed up! They also have a pop-up trailer, much larger than ours. It was Alans parents. They had the campsite next to us but unfortunetly it was at the bottom of a large hill going up to our site. We did go into Estes for lunch at our favorite place, the Brewery.
Most of the time there was filled with kids playing in the rocks and dirt. Pippins made a great dinner of dutch oven pizzas. Baldwins went home that night because there was too much rain for tent camping. Saturday was hiking and playing. I bought tarps and rope just so we could make a large shelter because we knew it would be raining alot. Alan, Carl and Nolan kindly made me tent city!! It was awesome. My parents came for dinner on Saturday night. We ate hawaiian haystacks. Then we drove into Estes for the fireworks. We werent sure they were going to happen with all the rain, but it stopped just in time. We met Julie from the Springs with her grandma and uncle. The fireworks were very cool! Sunday we packed up and headed home.

One of the favorite parts of the trip was the first night. I wasnt feeling very good so Emily took a walk with me. We came around a corner and noticed a bunch of lights. At first I thought it was campfires through the trees. But after a few minutes we realized it had to be something different. It almost looked like animal eyes looking at us but there were way too many of them. So we went back to the fire and Nolan and Carl came back with me to see the "electric field". That is what we named it. There were thousands of twinkling lights!!! A ranger came by patroling and told us that it was fireflies!!! In Colorado!! I guess there is a wetland there and it was a combination of a lot of rain, warm, no wind, and no bright moon. I have never seen so many in my life. It was awesome! We took the Pippins the next night but the moon was pretty bright so we only saw a handful, but even that is cool, again, especially in Colorado!