Camping at Hume Lake

I forgot to post pictures of our camping trip a couple weeks ago. We had a blast with our same group of friends that went last time at the beginning of the summer. We chose Hume lake which is also a church camp and resort type of place with camps for all ages around the lake. We stayed in the state campground an easy ten minute bike ride to the main camp (two minutes of you aren't trying to bike with kids with training wheels). I grew up going to church camp there.

We walked down to the elementary camp because I remembered at one point they had a playground. Not true. It is no longer there, but they did have a cool tire swing and a fort with a raft you can push across to it.The little girls were content with a pine cone and their own stump.We didn't know it when booking our trip, but it was search and rescue demo weekend at the lake with fire fighters, rescue helicopters doing demo lifts of people out of the lake, guard dogs, and other such fun demonstrations for two days. The boys (small and big) were absolutely thrilled.
We watched this helicopter life lift a dummy off the ground and on board. Cool!Ainsley thought it was mildly interesting but was more interested in picking wild flowers and pretending to marry Marty, one of the little boys with us. I'm not too sure that Marty was all that interested though.Tessa's main attraction was the sand toys in the dirt. It kept her messy and happy most of the time.Hunter has not been sick since the last time we went camping and on day two, he was throw up sick again. He slept it off in the afternoon and was better then next day. The best line of the week was when he finally emerged from the tent and told me,

"Mommy! I just CAN'T be allergic to camping!!!"

Oh poor kid!
The other highlight of the weekend was when I went to tuck Hunter tighter in his covers late at night. He was sound asleep and as I pulled them up around his chin, my hand closed on something smooth and damp that was about the length of my hand. I thought it was some plastic toy. I picked it up and it wriggled. I screamed, dropped it, grabbed a light and saw a salamander crawling across the sleeping bag. I caught it again and put it in a dishtub for the boys to find in the morning and enjoy. They all thoroughly did.

Note to self: Always zip the tent fly during the day. You never know what might meander in and share you bed with you at night. I was rather creeped out crawling into my bed imagining all the possibilities after that.

You know what I heard about 10 billion times the next morning?

"Mommy, don't you think a salamander would be a great pet?"

"I wish I could have a salamander."

"Don't you think the salamander is cool as a pet?"

"How do you take care of a pet salamander?"

"Mommy, I wish I could have a salamander as a pet."

Needless to say, about midmorning I made the boys let him go in the bushes after explaining why wild animals don't make good pets.

All Hunter's wheedling refused to move this Mommy's heart of stone.

And I don't even feel the slightest bit sorry.