Cold Camping

No, I guess cold is not the word I should use to describe the night we spent in the mountains this weekend...it was FREEZING!! When we woke up, Nate checked the temp in the ole' van, it was 29 degrees. Neither Nate or I slept well, thankfully the girls actually did - Sarah snuggled in with me in my bag and Elizabeth with a hat and tons of blankets between Nate and I stayed warm and cozy. One of the other reasons that we did not sleep much was because the elk were bugling from about 12:30am to 3:30 am. It was an amazing thing actually. If you have never heard an elk bugle, you must at some point. They are such large animals yet fairly graceful, in the fall the bull elk bugle to get the attention of the females and challenge the other males. It is an amazing sound - high pitched trumpet sort of sounds. Anyway, I have heard them many times before, but never this close. They were literally in our campsite it seemed. We could hear them walking through the woods and I am almost certain we heard some hitting their racks. Thunder was scared to death and yelped his prepubescent yelp that really should be a large bark for the size dog that he is! All of it sent chills up my spine, but it was a really neat experience.

The camping trip was really a great one despite the cold. Spending time together was just priceless. Seeing our girls love the things that we do thrills us so much.

Now, I know I usually have amazingly wonderful pictures of adventures like this but alas, not this time...Our camera was murdered by our three year old this week. Dear little thing wanted me to take a picture of Sarah being cute and I suggested that she take it. With great delight she did and 50 pictures later (I got distracted) she brought me a broken camera. I don't think I will ever know quite how it happened and I blame myself for letting her use it all by herself and not paying attention to the photo shoot she was having. Oh well, it is just a thing and it can be replaced (thankfully for free with our Sony points!!)

So, here's to a picture less blog for once!!

By the way, Elizabeth's summary of the noise she heard in the night when asked if she heard anything was, (eyes all alight) "Yes, I heard something like elephants and the big bad wolf!!"