The good, the bad, the dirty

Our camping trip was a success. I think this picture pretty much sums up camping with small children. I counted at least 3 such potties outside of our groups tents.
If I had to chose one word to sum up camping with 14 children it would be.....hmmm, let me think. Dirty. It started out small. A smudge here, a bit of dust there.

Then the kids decided to throw all restraint out the window. That's right Isaac, the mats right there but just sit in the dirt.

Ramsey and Athena on Saturday when we were deciding which child was the dirtiest.

I would have people vote but I didn't get permission to post all the kids pictures. Rowan here won.

I'm pretty amazed how clean Maggie looks in this picture. I promise you she was anything but.

There is one thing that everyone loves about camping, the fire. I always forget between trips how stressed I get with my kids around open flame. It doesn't help that they make targets of themselves. Just lean right over Isaac.

Jill and Chunkzilla aka Molly. This was the first day before we were all covered in dirt. And I promise I'll stop calling Molly that before she gets a complex.

And me. I made some Coconut Cupcakes to bring up. We were celebrating several birthdays. I didn't frost until we got there, that's why my hands are covered.

Here's another shot. Chocolate frosting from JVB and toasted coconut. I like the chocolate frosting from JVB better then VCTOW. I used coconut extract instead of vanilla to give the frosting an extra coconut kick. Next time I'll use the left over coconut milk instead of soymilk, too. This coconut cupcake recipe was very good. I'll be using it again.

We really did have an amazing time. It was a ton of fun having so many campsites in a row. The kids were able to just wander. If a child came into our zone we'd keep an eye on them. It was also really neat to see the kids playing and finding things to do without any playground equipment and tons of toys.

I didn't take any other pictures of food. Nothing was super notable except one thing. I grabbed one bar of chili chocolate for a sophisticated s'more. It was so amazing. Everyone loved it. The spice was like a light after note but it cut out some of the overly sweet taste that s'mores can have. Yum!

Our camping season has started off with a bang. We have trips already planned once a month through July. I hope the rest are as fun as this one was.