A Night Under the Stars...

This past week was Spring Break so we decided to take a quick trip to the beach....only one problem....my parents condo was booked! Bummer! So we had to revert to "plan B" which was a weekend camping trip...which actually turned into a one night camping trip due to the bad weather that was coming in....but we still had a blast!

We packed up our things and our cute little pop-up camper and headed to Mallard Creek Campgrounds. We had never camped there before, but we will be going back for sure! It is very clean and quiet (until the Jones kids got there) and almost every lot is on the water.

This was the view as we stepped out of the camper....

Being surrounded by river water means only one thing to Mark....fishing! So we did a lot of this...

Kayli was a little distracted (as was I) by the water snake that was swimming around....

After we fished for awhile, we decided to relax before we searched for firewood...





After that short break, we were on the hunt....

Thanks to the guy that ran a red light and crashed into Mark's truck a few weeks ago, we are still with out the truck....so we had to make due. (I had lots of vacuuming to do afterwards!)

After gathering wood, we did a little more of this.....

...and it's a good thing because we caught enough fish to have a fish fry!

Mark had to do the dirty work first...

While he did this, Kayli and I ran to find a Dollar General that was supposedly "6 or 7 " miles down the road, which ended up being about 15 miles down the road! Anyway, we had not expected to cook fish so we needed a pot, oil, and batter.

After we returned, we realized that we had one more problem....we didn't have a way to heat the oil! Oops! So we improvised once again....against my will, I put the oil in the pot and Mark held it over the fire to heat it. I was so nervous! Oil and fire...not a good combo!

We weren't even sure it was going to work, but....

It did! And Mark was so proud! haha!

Kayli and Chase waited patiently while we were solving our dilemma....



I should brag on them for one second. They behaved so well on this trip! I was worried at first because our lot was in between 2 elderly couples but they were quiet AND they got along-AMAZING!!

Now back to dinner.....

(I don't eat seafood so I also grilled pork chops!)

Finally it was time to chow down!

I think Chase enjoyed the pork chops as much as I did! haha!

After dinner, what else could we do????

SMORES, of course!!!

After a sticky mess and a belly full of roasted marshmallows, we were all ready for bed so we fell asleep under the stars, with the crickets chirping in the background....what could be any better?

The next day we woke up early and guess what we did???

Yep....fishing.....again!

I reminded Mark that he was lucky to have a wife who actually likes fishing....maybe not quite this much.....but still, I do like to fish and the kids were having a blast, so I cooperated. We caught a ton of big fish on this day....

Even though this was a short trip, I enjoyed it so much! It was so great to have my 3 favorite people all to myself. No thoughts of school, baseball/softball, work, housework, etc. cluttered our minds. We simply enjoyed the beautiful weather, our beautiful surroundings, and most importantly, we enjoyed just being together. =)