Months ago Maddox researched ways to make a homemade stove out of an aluminum can. He's had that little can sitting up in the cupboard next to the lanterns with a hand written note, "tell Maddox to bring this camping". His pocket knife has been regularly sharpened and just waiting to be used out in nature, whittling a stick next to the campfire. Yes, he has been counting down the days to this camping trip for quite some time. We've all been looking forward to this trip, although some of us were more excited about the camping aspect than others. Labor Day finally came and after a full two days of pinning camping food recipes, shopping, prepping food and packing half our garage into the back of the car, we headed off to Roosevelt Lake. We were disappointed to find there weren't any camp sites close to the lake, but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. We started to unload the car when a scorpion fell out of the luggage, of course the kids were convinced more scorpions were hiding in the tent. We set up camp in the scorching heat, I burned the croissant sandwiches on the grill, we discovered a huge ant pile under the picnic table, along with an infestation of bees. Things weren't going quite as planned, even Maddox was beginning to lose his zeal for camping, and that's saying a lot. The only silver lining was that unlike Saguaro lake, this one had actual real flushing toilets. Ryder declared that it was the best day ever. Besides, we knew once we got to the lake all would be well in the world again. We launched the boat and were immediately attacked by millions of flying bugs, they covered every inch of the boat, and we had to cover our heads with towels to keep them out of our mouths. Once we got out on the water the bugs went away, but the wind had picked up and the water was so choppy it felt like we were on the ocean. Nothing was going as planned. But then the evening came, the water calmed down, we met up with friends and seeing a lake full of kids laughing and swimming made the bad moments melt away. We enjoyed a few hours of an empty lake and ended with a breathtaking sunset. The rest of the weekend continued in the same pattern, moments of highs like campfire nachos and s'mores, beautiful starry skies, morning giggles in the tent, that perfect morning calm on the water that can't be rivaled, gliding along the mirrored water singing along to my "lake" playlist, Ryder's head lying in my lap, hair whipping in the wind, watching the kids out on the water pushing themselves to improve and doing what they love. Doing what our family loves. This lake is so big it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves, we immediately fell in love, it will be hard to go back to Saguaro after this. But of course there were also the lows, including the tarantula I almost stepped on, the rowdy neighbors keeping us up all night with their foul language, the crying baby that woke us up at the crack of dawn, the stifling heat that made it impossible to sleep, the epic fight between the kids that echoed around the campground, the endless infestation of bugs, including the bee trapped in the tent that kept us up with that annoying buzz, the broken pilot light, the freak hail storm on the way home that hit so hard we had to pull over. So although we may be more of a hotel family than a camping family, one thing is for sure, we are definitely a lake family. Grateful for this weekend, the good, the bad and the ugly, but just not that tarantula.
We took a day trip up to Pinetop on Sunday to look at some condos and to meet up with friends for dinner at their cabin. We couldn't get enough of the beautiful cooler weather.
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