We just finished our first ever family camping trip. We went to Big Bear Lake in California. Jared and the boys have been begging to go camping for years. I kept telling them to go without me but for whatever reason they wanted me along. When my friend Summer invited us to camp over Fourth of July Weekend I finally relented. Well, we did have a lot of fun and it was full of great experiences and beautiful nature, but I hate being dirty! Seriously. The dirty part was not as bad as I thought it would be. Somehow the dirt mixes in with the grease in your hair and makes everything livable and my deodorant worked wonders. We were able to go to town a lot and use bathrooms with running water and our campsite had a latrine which I cleaned with Lysol wipes as soon as we got there much to everyone's entertainment and I am sure quiet gratitude. We had a private group camp with enough room for 5 more families. Our original group consisted of 6 families, but ended up being only 3. That turned out to be the perfect number for renting a boat for a few hours and swimming in the freezing lake. The lake was not as cold as I remember Deer Creek Reservoir(of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah) being but was still quite frigid. After a bit of swimming around I called for a life jacket not because I was in any dangerous situation but I was tired and wanted the kids to swim with me. We swam over to some rocks and after some prodding I managed to get Maxwell and Xander back in the water with me. Maxwell demanded, "To the rocks!" as soon as he was in my arms as if I was a motorboat. We watched the fireworks over the lake which even included a few "happies" as Maxwell calls smiley faces. Maxwell had his normal routine of trauma over the idea of hearing fireworks and fell asleep for the beginning. I woke him up about halfway through and prodded him to watch a few. We made new friends, Diane, Dave, Thomas, 9, and Michael, 4. We drove on scary dirt roads and arrived at the campsite at 3:30 on Thursday. Despite our dirtiness we were able to enjoy lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Saturday. (Thank goodness for dim lighting.) We then took in an Alpine slide and a water slide at the same location. Elijah had to ride the ski lift by himself and rode his own sled by himself as well. I took Xander down and Jared took Maxwell down. Xander and I were not able to go fast. Either we weighed too much for the sled I chose or my arms aren't long enough to reach around Xander to accelerate the sled. I was freaking out silently about Elijah having to go by himself but he did great. He can't wait until we can go on another Alpine slide so he can choose a faster track. The boys then took in the water slide. Maxwell jammed himself up in the slide and according to one lady "had to be rescued by the lifeguard." She was being a lot over dramatic though. He was fine, hadn't swallowed any water, but for some reason he stops in the middle of water slides. Xander loved the S'mores the most out of the whole family. He ate the most of them and grins whenever you mention them. The boys came up with a crazy car game where you get points based on seeing Jeeps or bikers. This game can last for hours. After packing up camp on Sunday we stopped at some boulders to do some climbing and to play a little. A man told Jared about a rope swing in the area so we all went and enjoyed ourselves on that. We arrived home safely and exhausted last night and began the cleaning and unpacking process.