Family Camp-A-Thon 2013!

Every year during the month of August (sometimes July), my mom's side of the family gets together for what we call the Sargent Family Camp-A-Thon.  We always plan our summer trip home to Michigan to coincide with the camping trip.  You see, I grew up camping and love it... Freddy not so much so I'm working on converting him.  We try to go to a different campground every year and, no matter where we go, have a lot of fun.

Last year was the first year that all of us cousins showed up with our own kids so we decided to go to Jellystone Park this year since it has a lot of activities for kids.  This was Marshall's 3rd year camping so we were all pretty excited to go.  The only sucky part was that Freddy had his Annual Training with the Guard during this week so he missed out on all the fun :(

Day 1

All packed up and ready to go!


And the trek has started.  And don't worry... this was taken before we left.  Marsh was secured in his car seat before we actually pulled out :)


After 2 1/2 hours, and a few wrong turns by Grandma we finally made it!

Day 2
The 2nd day was filled with wagon rides, playgrounds, arts & crafts, swimming and campfires.  Marshall was super excited to decorate his own cowboy hat.  I might add the theme for the weekend was "Wet & Wild West".  Marshall loved riding on the big kids bikes too.  Of course, with some help from Aunt Andrea and Cousin Jacob.

We also went swimming.  They had a little 1 foot deep kiddie pool that was perfect for Marshall.  He LOVES being in the water.  Did I mention he loves being in the water???

 

And, of course, the day ended with a cozy campfire.

 

Day 3

On day 3, we actually did something that I've never done before.  We went on a dune buggy tour.  The campground is near the Silver Lake Sand Dunes, which are between Silver Lake and Lake Michigan.  So we all decided to hit up one of the dune buggy tours.  To be honest, I almost didn't go, but then thought, when will Marsh have the chance to do this again so we tagged along!  The wait was around 45 minutes and every time they called out the last names of the parties to board the dune buggy, Marshall would yell "What about Marshall??"  Since we put the reservation under my brother's last name, which is Marshall, when they did finally call it out, Marsh got so excited because they called him to his dune buggy :)

As we were going over the dunes, Marshall kept raising his hands up like he was on a roller coaster ride.  I see visits to Cedar Point in our future!

 
And what would a trip be without a picture of Marshall running around like a crazy person :)  The picture on the right is a good visual of how high the sand dunes are.  The brown trees that you see poking through the top of the dunes are actually around 50 feet high.  Silver Lake loses 3 - 5 feet every year because of the dunes that are blown in from Lake Michigan.  They have already covered 14 homes and a farm!  We saw one cottage that was already half covered with sand.

During the tour they stopped and let us get out to walk along Lake Michigan for a few minutes.  It was very calm and relaxing.

And this was our failed attempt at getting a decent picture of the two of us sitting by the campfire :)

Day 4
We were scheduled to leave after 3 fun-filled days of family and craziness.  Marshall helped Cousin JR tear down his tent.

And the ride home seemed to take forever, but we finally made it.  Marshall helped Grandma back the truck and camper into the driveway.

I mentioned this was Marshall's 3rd camping trip with the Sargent family.  Look for some posts for Flashback Friday on both trips as they were fairly eventful :)

~AKO