A few weeks ago, on Friday, October 25th, I celebrated my 27th birthday!! Okay, I'm lying a little bit...it was my 37th birthday. Thank goodness my children are younger than the children of most people my age...it helps keep me young!
As is often the case, late October is a very busy time for us. When the weather in Arizona cools off in October, everyone suddenly wants to party! As a result, a lot of outdoorsy activities are often scheduled, on top of the holiday-related activities and all the other usual stuff. For example, our LDS ward has done its annual camp-out in late October for the last few years. It's usually conflicted with my birthday in one way or another. This year, the date of the camp-out was Friday, October 25th...my birthday!
My initial hope of being pampered for my birthday was swapped in favor of freezing on top of the mountain with my family. I didn't mind too much, though...lots of our friends were going up, and our girls absolutely love Camp Zion (the church-owned camp near the top of Mount Lemmon, north of Tucson). At first, we weren't sure if Nathan was going to make it due to a work conflict. However, he ultimately decided to choose the camp-out over the work activity, so we were able to have a fun family weekend together!
Here are some of the highlights from our night on Mount Lemmon:
We made it up to the campsite earlier than most families; that gave us plenty of time to wander around sightseeing and picking our ideal camping spot. A handful of families had camped out the night before, so the kids were able to run around playing and exploring while Nathan and I set up the tent.
Sadly (or not?), this was to be our tent's "final voyage." It was pretty old to begin with; we'd inherited it from some friends, who may or may not have inherited it from someone else. And for us "beginning campers," it worked fine. However, it had gotten a few rips in it over our last few trips, and the poles were starting to stab through their hooks. The only reason the tent stayed straight is because we managed to get our stuff inside it before the pole set everything off-balance.
However, it managed to keep us warm and protected for one more night. It's time to finally buy a tent of our own, now that we have a little more experience with camping!
It was a fairly chilly evening, so we decided to get our fire going early...
Luckily, we came well-prepared in the fire department. Besides the firewood that was already stacked near most fire-pits in the camp, we brought up a huge box of kindling given to us by a friend, who'd recently cleared out a bunch of trees on her property.
I also tried something different for dinner on this camping trip: tinfoil dinners! I didn't plan anything fancy; a hamburger patty with onions, carrots & shredded potatoes, with a little salt, pepper, and cream of mushroom soup thrown on top for good measure. It mostly worked, but it took a much longer time to cook than I'd anticipated (surprise, surprise!). Our dinners weren't ready until well after 7 pm. I thought they tasted pretty good, but the kids were less than impressed. Looks like we may go back to roasting hot dogs next year. So much for being an intrepid camper.
While the dinners were heating up, we went on a small hike at the edge of the camp site. The kids were particularly thrilled with the "Cave Of Wonders" (name inspired by Aladdin, perhaps?), and begged us to come check it out. It turned out to be less of a "cave," and more of a "narrow hole in a rock, leading to a small alcove beneath said rock."
But whatever...it was a cave as far as the kids were concerned. They had fun crawling in and out of it, before we headed uphill a little ways to enjoy the view.
Just "down the hill" from Camp Zion is a large rock outcropping which offers a spectacular view of the city of Tucson, thousands of feet below. It's especially striking at nighttime or at dusk, as we discovered. It made for some excellent photo opportunities!
For a few minutes, our family sat quietly, admiring the view. We then sang a few Primary songs together, celebrating the beautiful world we are blessed to live in. Then we headed carefully back up the hill to camp...just in time for dinner, games, and dessert with the rest of the ward.
There was actually a dessert competition involved...my pumpkin cake took second place! For that, I won a small prize...another dessert (a big candy bar)! Nutritionally, this wasn't the healthiest of camp-outs.
After eating dessert, roasting a couple of marshmallows, and visiting with a few friends, we bundled ourselves up and settled down to sleep. We did this with some trepidation; the sleeping has been our least favorite part of camping...mostly because Aurora is terrified of the dark, but also because of the cold. We were much better prepared for the cold weather this year...we actually brought the canvas cover for our tent, for starters (yes, we forgot it last year...we are not great campers)! We all wore warm woolen hats, extra layers, and heavy socks. We also each slept inside our own sleeping bag, so the heat wouldn't disperse under thin blankets as it did last year. I even stuffed an extra blanket into each girl's sleeping bag! This year, we also brought up some glow-sticks; we thought that by wearing one as a bracelet, Aurora would be less afraid of the dark night.
How did all our preparations work? Mostly pretty good. Celeste slept through the night without a peep, and Lorelai only got up once to use the bathroom. Nathan slept (mostly) comfortably through the night as well; his loud snores, at least, seemed to attest to that fact! Aurora did wake up in the night crying...as she does every year. I decided to nip her fussiness in the bud by inviting her into my brand-new sleeping bag (Happy Birthday To Me!). This was a great move for her; she slept soundly the rest of the night. Me, not so much. Throughout the night, I kept trying to inch away from her tossing and turning, to no avail. By night's end, my face was literally pressed against the inner wall of the tent, and my back was very sore from laying half-off the ground cover we'd put on the tent bottom--blankets, mostly. Oh well...at least it was warm inside my sleeping bag!
Cute Aurora holding the cute hand of a cute baby (not ours, a friend's)
The next morning, we built another fire to warm ourselves up a little bit. Then we went inside the main lodge at the campsite to have some breakfast...nicely cooked up for us by a few families.
After that, we didn't have any concrete plans, so we leisurely broke our camp (and put out our fire) while letting the kids play and explore. As luck would have it, another stake was also using the campsite that night...it was a Boy Scouts group, and one of their leaders was Dan Basham, a guy who used to be in our Tucson ward! He had also put together a fun swing in one of the campsite's taller trees; this turned out to be the main event for the kids that morning.
The line for the swing stayed this long (or longer!) for hours, since everybody wanted a turn. Lorelai and Celeste were both terrified to go on the swing at first, but once they finally got their courage up, they couldn't swing on it often enough!
As you can see, this swing went pretty high in the air!
Lorelai had a look of terror on her face as we prepared to let her go, but she was all smiles by the time her ride came to an end.
After all this excitement, it was time to head down the mountain. We briefly thought of exploring or hiking somewhere on the mountain, but Nathan and I both had a lot of church activities to prepare for that weekend, so we decided it would be best to get back home and recover our strength before more was required of us. We reluctantly bid farewell to Camp Zion for (probably?) another year; the girls even shed a few tears as we went down the mountain! I'm glad they have so much fun there. It was a great (if chilly!) birthday present!
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