In Case You Forgot...: Camping in Hurkey Creek

This past weekend we took the kids and met up with some great friends at Hurkey Creek (near Idyllwild). Lillian hadn't been feeling well the whole week, so we were hoping that her fever would stay down and she would start to be her old self again. We arrived around 4pm and started setting up camp next to the Thompsons. The Coles arrived a couple of hours later. My brother, his wife and her youngest sister arrived that night. (Our tent is on the right)
The weather was perfect warm but not too hot, with a great breeze!! Anyway, after setting up our tent and such we started dinner. We had received a dutch oven years ago as a Christmas present and we haven't had a chance to use it. So I was so excited to be able to use it. I seasoned it at home, so it was all ready. I have a couple of dutch oven cook books and I had found a simple recipe to use. It was kind of like a lasagna and it was so good. Everyone loved it, too!! After wards we all enjoyed s'mores. Yum!! My favorite part of camping!
Saturday, Cyndi, Ali and I got up early, well we were kind of already awake but I will leave that story for later. Anyway, we went for a nice brisk walk around the campsite. It was perfect, the weather was crisp and cool, and it was so beautiful up there. On our walk we found this huge log that had been carved into a bench. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it because it was so cool. We sat on it and enjoyed the peacefulness and beauty of mother nature for a few minutes. It was great to get away for a few minutes and leave the kids with their dads too!
For breakfast, Cyndi used the dutch oven to make this really yummy egg, sausage, bacon and cheese dish. Everyone loved it, especially the adults. The rest of the day was spent taking the kids on nature walks, to the play ground, playing games, and just enjoying the great outdoors.
Lillian had a lot of fun just being able to be outside and get dirty and having lots of kids to play with. Haylee and Penelope brought barbie dolls and a Cinderella barbie which Lillian just loved playing with. Lillian was also quite the wanderer. We had several times where she wandered away from our area to another campsite nearby and we had to go looking for her. Little Miss Independent has to go exploring on her own! Thankfully we found her right away.
Dinner that night for us was foil dinners, we even had enough to share with Rick and Ali. It was so yummy too. Then I used my dutch oven one more time to make a delicious peach cobbler. It was so good and everyone loved it.
We all really enjoyed being able to get out and hang out together. It was so much fun and we can't wait till the next camp out. I loved being able to hang out and get to know our friends a little bit more. Camping in groups is so much more fun compared to just going by your self. :)
We were having so much fun that we kind of forgot to take pictures, so we only have a few!! :)

Now on to my story. Friday night as we were all trying to go to bed we had the unfortunate pleasure of being kept awake because our neighbors across the way were totally loud. Not only were they totally drunk but they were high on drugs too. They were yelling and screaming, laughing at the top of their lungs, using profanity plus they kept turning their music on and turning it up louder. The Ranger was over to their campsite at least twice to tell them to turn the music off and to be quiet and they would for like 45 minutes or so and then they would turn it back on. The camp grounds have a quiet time between the hours of 10pm and 6am. So you can imagine how much sleep everyone got, hardly any. I have been to this place before and never had this happen before plus it is suppose to be more family oriented. So needless to say everyone in the camp grounds around these people were really mad. They were talking about it in the bathrooms and making sure that everyone went down to complain to the rangers. I actually found him driving up in our direction and flagged him down so we could complain. I am sure he got a ton of complaints. He was actually on his way over to this group when I had flagged him down, so he asked us a few questions and made sure he had all the facts before he headed over. We are not sure if they were kicked out or if they were told that if they caused any more problems that they would be kicked out, all we know is that we didn't have anymore problems the rest of the weekend. We all were able to get a much better nights sleep the next night. Yeah!!

Our tent and campsite.

Brandon and Preston hanging out while Daddy eats breakfast.

Daddy posing for a picture with his eyes closed. LOL

Hanging out before breakfast at Toby and Cyndi's campsite. Brandon, Preston and Lillian Case

Rick and Ali's campsite and tents.

My cute little boy. Mmmm he is so stinkin cute!! Just love those cheeks!

Haylee deciding if her marshmallows are done cooking.

Lillian playing with Preston who is sitting on daddy's lap

Lillian loves her little brother, she is constantly playing with him and making him laugh.

Zach Thompson sitting in his bumbo. So stinkin cute!!

Lillian loved Zach, sometimes she would call him Preston and it was so funny. She loved playing with him too!

Haylee posing for the camera while cooking her marshmallows. We let the kids have s'mores for breakfast Sunday morning. They loved it!!

Toby using the left over breakfast from Saturday to make breakfast burritos. They were so good.

Ali, Haylee Thompson and Penelope Cole cooking marshmallows.

Cyndi eating her breakfast burrito with Stevie at her side and Haylee in front.

Erick and Lillian playing with bubbles. The younger kids really seemed to love playing with them. Especially Lillian and Stevie they would walk around holding the bottles and trying to blow bubbles. It was so cute.