Annual Camping Trip Round up

We just returned from our annual Wads/Groth camping trip today.  Read about past camping trips here and here.  This year, we chose Governor Dodge State Park in Dodgeville, WI.  The forecast showed blistering heat and rain, but we went ahead with our plans anyway.

I had already whipped up some camping sangria and we could not let that go to waste!

Ingredients:
Peach infused vodka
White wine
7 up or Sprite
fruit: I used strawberries, apples and blueberries
artificial sweetener
mason jars and lids

Directions:
Put 1/2-1 packet of sweetener in the jars (I put 1/2 because I was afraid it was going to be too sweet and it was perfect).
Chop up your fruit and fill the mason jars about 2/3-3/4 full of fruit.
Put 3 shots of peach infused vodka in each jar.
Fill the jars up with white wine.
Place your lids on the jars.
Put on ice.
When ready to drink, pour 1/2 of a jar into a solo cup and fill the rest with 7 up or Sprite.
Enjoy!!

And they were oh.so.good.

 Here we are just getting to the campsite and still clean and excited:)

We set up camp in the heat and humidity.

(Last year our little tent leaked during a good rainstorm at night so we invested in a much larger 6 person tent with screen porch and some cots.  Game changer.)

Peek inside:

Dining room:

And then we had to eat immediately.

 And we embarked on our 3 night camping adventure.  Including swims in the lake, ribs by Cookie, sparklers and glow sticks...

Unafraid raccoons visiting the campsite every night and stealing butter out of coolers, a torrential downpour and wicked thunderstorm the first night and morning camp coffee...

Children games of Wall-e, hide and seek and paper Barbies...

The shortest hike on the hottest day...

On the second night, after our rib dinner during which we listened to scary thunder sounds for almost a continuous hour, we got an alert on our phones of a tornado warning, not watch, for the next half hour.  This prompted a flurry of activity including throwing our kids in the cars, stowing the chairs away, adding stakes to the screen tent that lifted off the ground in a gust of wind all while consoling the kids that "of course it is going to be fine!  Nothing bad is going to happen!"  Then we quickly made a mad dash to the local Wal-Mart (where else) where we shopped our anxieties away.

 Rainbow after the storm.

Then we treated the kids (and ourselves) to A&W ice cream.

The next day, we continued on our merry camping adventure.

 (One of the craft project for the kids: nature dream catchers.)

We also made a trip to House on the Rock (which I don't know why I have never ever been there before).

If you have not been there, please, please go!  It is amazing!!

And back at the campsite, we watched the kids fight play.

And then, we were spent.

More memories in the books:)