Camping at Johnson's Shut-Ins

It was fun in a miserable sort of I hope this is over soon sort of way. I've never been so stressed as I was at 8:30 trying to get both kids to go to sleep in a tent with noisy bugs and birds and neighbors. We went as a last hurrah before Blake started his intern year. The main attraction is the pools that are a .25 mile hike. Crystal clear water that is only marred by a few snakes here and there. When someone spots one, they call "Snake!" and you get out of the water for a couple minutes until you assume it's gone. So seriously, I'm not sure we would go back, but it was sure pretty and Isaac loved the water. It's a good thing we went somewhere with water because there was a heat advisory in effect.

I guess we're quite the serious hikers because one of the rangers said, "I've seen one of those backpacks once!"

Trusty hiking shoes

So beautiful, camping in Missouri. But with this beauty comes BUGS. Ants, flies, spiders, big beetles, cockroaches, grasshoppers, gnats, mosquitoes. It takes all the fun out to be swatting and waking up in the middle of the night to a spider crawling up my arm.

James was miserable. No place to nap, so hot, but once we did finally get him to sleep at 9 he slept until 6, which ironically is the longest sleeping stretch he's ever done.

Such clear, amazingly refreshing water.

Isaac loved the tent. It was hot in there, though. We all just barely fit in our 4-man tent with the pack n play in the corner. Isaac really wanted to relive his baby days and sleep the pack n play and did not want a big boy sleeping bag.

Isaac #2ed for the very first time in the potty in the grass while we were there. Nothing can live up to that now. And I would like to report that I feel like potty training is complete. We've only had one accident this entire week and the #2s have finally clicked, thanks to the reward of ice cream. And may I just say, to anyone potty training soon, that if it starts getting wearisome, try changing the treat reward because I did m&m's for a week and it was super exciting when the treat changed to fruit snacks.