A Camping Trip, A Birthday and an unexpected New Van?!

I think we decided that it's been almost 2 years since we last went camping.  What?!  Two years?!  That is way too long for this family. 

Last year was taken up with the move, the flood, the building of our new house and the birth of our 3rd child.  And you don't go camping in the winter up North.  So, about 2 years it's been.

That was one of my initial requests for this summer.  That we could go camping.  And here it's already July and we just now were able to make that trip happen.

And what a blessing the trip was!  It was also quite an adventure, as our trips always seem to be. 

There was talk about taking most of the week off for the Fourth of July this year at Nathan's work so as soon as I heard there would be a possibility of a long weekend I began to plan a trip in my mind.  We decided to head to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota if Nate got a long weekend off from work.  The final decision was made to work on the Fourth of July and take Thursday and Friday off.  And the preparations began soon after for our camping trip.  Since it had been almost 2 years since our last camping trip we needed to find all our camping items and then fill in and re stock any items that were lacking.  Finally early Thursday morning after packing up the van and getting everyone loaded in, we headed out for the mountains.  We didn't have much of a plan other than wanting to visit Mt. Rushmore and celebrate Janessa's first birthday.  We stopped at the information center in Rapid City and were directed to check out the camp sites at Lake Pactola, so we got our map and headed up the mountain to see if there were any camp sites still available. 

Lets just say I felt like I received the biggest blessing from the Lord when we reached the lake and found that the tent campsites were right near the water and there were options to pick from.  The view was absolutely beautiful and the weather was fantastic.  So we went to work setting up our tent that evening, we ate dinner, enjoyed sitting outside taking in the view of the lake and mountains and then we put the kids to bed a little early that night (for a camping trip) and Nate and I sat up for a while together playing a game and enjoying time together. 

The beautiful view from our camp site!  Thank you Lord!!

Janessa hangin out on the tarp while we put the tent up.

Zeke and Kenzie helping us put up the tent.

Happy to finally be camping!

The weather forecast had the potential for thunderstorms every day were were there, with the potential for severe thunderstorms on Thursday.  Well when we arrived it was beautiful outside but as the evening wore on and night approached so did those thunderstorms.  When the rain began to fall Nate and I put everything away for the night and the moment after we climbed into the tent the rain began to pour.  Thankfully when we were setting up the tent there had been a bit of a wind and we secured the tent extra well.  But the rain was another story.  We weren't sure how the tent would hold up.  The thunder and lightening were intense and the storm lasted all night long.  We kept waking up periodically, checking the tent for water, checking on the kids, who thankfully slept through the whole thing, and at one point when I truly though it had to be morning, I asked Nate what time it was and he dashed my hopes and told me it was only 1:15 am.  It was a very long night.  By the morning we had some water all around the edges in the tent, but not much considering how much it rained.  We found out from my dad the next morning that we had been in the 'red' of the storm and if you make it in the red then you know it was pretty intense.  And that much more when you weather it in a tent. 

Yeah, our tent is really that big, Nate can stand straight while inside, and it's as big as a room in our house.

All the extra ropes to keep it from blowing away, they did their job well!

Thankfully the day dawned bright and sunny and we enjoyed Friday up at Mt. Rushmore taking in the sites and enjoying the hiking trail around the monument.  We headed back to the tent in the late afternoon for a family nap and headed back up to Mt. Rushmore for the evening lighting program which was beautiful. 

Nate and the kids at Mt. Rushmore for the first time!

And of course he found some rocks to climb.

Janessa checking it all out.

Getting a closer look.

the girls...

Checking out the museum.

On a hike.

Having fun!

My baby passed out riding on her Daddy's back.

We all made it down and then we had to make it up so Daddy carried Janessa and Kenzie.

That night everyone went to bed with a little extra excitement that it was Janessa's birthday the next morning and once again we woke up to another beautiful day.  We enjoyed the morning at our campsite playing games and relaxing together as a family and then headed into town for lunch at Fuddruckers so Janessa could enjoy a little birthday treat.  The kids ended up getting balloons and Janessa opened her little musical gift which had her squealing with delight for the next few hours!  The little girl absolutely loves music.  And soon we were heading back out to the van with the kids talking non-stop about the train ride we were heading to.

Another beautiful day to celebrate the life of Janessa!

The birthday girl!!

Playing catch.  Zeke has quite the arm on him.

We finally got her to walk in shoes, she was in totally rebellion when we put the shoes on her feet, she would not move at first and kept her legs locked straight but finally she decided to try it out.

She was so happy to finally be able to walk again!

Sweet, chubby baby legs.

Mommy and Kenzie girl!

Lunch at Fuddruckers.

sweet little girl loves her blankie

Happy Birthday dessert!

whoa, what was that?!

presents!

A little music box...

She was squealing so loudly we had to put the pacifier in her mouth.

I know its blurry but it shows how happy she was.

Our sweet little 1 year old!

That's when things got interesting.  We all loaded into the van and Nate turned the key and the van wouldn't start.  I'll spare you the details of another long story but this is not the first time our van has done this.  So we figured we'd wait and try and figure out our options.  Here it was in the early afternoon on a Saturday, so the options were limited and growing slimmer by the hour.  The van still wouldn't start.  The kids began to realize that the much anticipated train ride was becoming less and less of a reality until finally I had to call and cancel.  Nate made the decision to call dealerships and see if we could buy another van to get us home.  The only problem is we had no way of getting to the dealerships and time was running out fast.  Finally we found one dealership who was willing to come pick us up and take a look at our van to see how much we could get for it and we began the process of buying a new vehicle.  Blah!  Not the kind of terms to be walking into a dealership under, they totally had the upper hand, we were desperate.  Our options were extremely limited for used vans and we were not about to buy a new Honda Odyssey, those things are ex-pen-sive!  Well the afternoon was long and painful, with tears flowing from most of us but in the end we ended up with a van that could get us home and that we can hopefully re-sell and buy one that we want.  Even though our old van was old, we loved it and didn't want to see it go, especially under those circumstances.  But amidst all the chaos we began to count all the blessings from the Lord through the whole situation.  We could have been up in the mountains when the van died or even at the evening lighting at Mt. Rushmore but instead we were in town.  We happened to be interested in two vans at the time, one that was quite a bit more expensive then the one we ended up buying which helped in the negotiating process and ended up getting us a bit more money for our old van.  The kids did an amazing job throughout the whole ordeal.  The weather was cloudy and cool which was another blessing while we waited in the van until we decided what to do next.  And the fact that this all happened before 5 pm on Saturday so we weren't stuck in Rapid City until Monday (with our tent up in the mountains with had half our stuff).  There were many things that worked out because the Lord's grace and mercy throughout the whole process and although we were bummed about it, we were still very grateful for the Lord's provision and blessing.

At the dealership....

Our 4 options which really turned out to be only 2 options.

After the purchase of the new van was made we headed back to our old van, unloaded everything from it and put it into the new van and said our good-byes.  The crazy thing is, we had taken out one of the captains chairs and left it at home to allow more room for all our camping stuff but with the purchase of a new van came the extra chair and less room for all the camping stuff. Thankfully we were able to rearrange and figure out where we could put everything and somehow we managed to fit it all in the new van with the added seat and make it home safe and sound.

Our old van, right where it died.

Saying good bye, thanks Seavey Family for your huge blessing, it was a great van while we had it!

New van/ Old van

Thankfully we made it back to the campsite before dark that evening, enjoyed dinner and stayed up late playing a game and playing in the dark with glow-sticks.  And although we couldn't have a campfire since it was extremely dry there, we roasted marshmallows over our camp stove and enjoyed some smores.  We made the most of the rest of our time there since we were packing up the next morning to head home. 

Happy Birthday to Janessa, here's a new van!

Having fun with glow sticks!

And finishing off the night with roasting marshmallows over the open flame of the camp stove.  Nate's back there roasting the marshmallows if you look closely.

We did end up taking that train ride, but that's another story for another day, which I'll share with you soon.

Our camping trip was fun and exciting, relaxing and yet full of adventures and trails but ultimately the blessing abounded!  We were so glad we made the trip down there, the kids had a blast and so did we.  I had forgotten how much I absolutely love the mountains!  And we can hardly wait until we can break out the camping gear for our next camping trip, whenever that might be!