Camping at Daisy State Park

Neil decided that he wanted to go camping for Father's Day.  I loved camping as a kid!  The boys were so excited!  Rebecca and Daniel kept Sarah Kathryn for us and I am so glad they did!  She would have not enjoyed camping in a pop-up with no A/C and no place to crawl around.  Thanks, Rebecca and Daniel!

We drove up to Arkansas on Friday afternoon.  It was an easy drive and we made it in a couple hours.  We stopped at Nadine's for dinner.  We noticed that all the restaurants in the small Arkansas towns were named after someone.  We got to camp and Neil started setting up the camper while I occupied the boys.  We checked out the bath house and our camping neighbors.  The next camp site over had a 9 year old boy from  Bossier and 2 down from us was Lee Sims, a teacher I taught with at CSHS!  Small world!  Can't get away from anyone!  The boys stayed up and played until 10.  Neil took Henry for a shower and we all went to bed. 

We got up the next morning feeling sticky and hot!  Neil and Bennett went to Darlene's restaurant to get coffee and then came back and made breakfast.  Mmmmmmm..nothing like breakfast at camp.  Those are my aunt's words...not mine!  It was delish.

Camp Chef...he is good-looking and a good cook.

We were up and at 'em by 9am.  Our neighbors weren't even awake when we left for our day of adventure!  We stopped for a quick picture and then headed to the Crater of Diamonds state park.

We didn't know that the Crater of Diamonds was having their annual Gemboree this weekend!  There were lots of people, games, and prizes.  The first game was "Diamond Toss" which was really just bean bag toss.  They had different age groups and the Lewis brothers both won their age groups!  Lewis brothers sweeping the competition!!!!

Henry won first place in 3-5 year olds and won that sweet water gun.  Here he is with the park ranger.

Bennett won 2nd in the 6-10 year olds.  He won some water grenades.

Off to dig for diamonds!  We didn't find anything.  We were very unprepared.  We brought some beach toys and a sand sifter and no.  Just no.  I guess diamond digging isn't for us!

We hung up our shovels and had a picnic lunch while we waited for the pool to open.  After a hot morning, this is just what we needed!  The little water park had slides, waterfalls, and rocks.  So fun!  Except they told the boys they couldn't play with their toys that they won there.  Hmmm.. weird.  There was some great people watching, too!

Our next stop was Dino Dig.  It was a pawn store that had a room with sand in it with buried rocks.  It was a delight!  The a/c was blasting and it was heaven.  It was so clean too.  We had a family competition to see who could find the most rocks.  I think they dug for 2 hours.  I fell asleep in the chair at one point because it was so quiet because we were the only ones there.  Delightful!

After digging and swimming...this 3 year old needed a nap.  We let him nap in the running car for 2 hours.

We got back to camp and it was the perfect time to break out my sweet scavenger hunt bags.  I printed off a list, taped it to a bag, and added a pencil.  I thought they were pretty sweet!  We even had one for the next door kid. 

After nap sleepy boy.

Water gun fun.

We met another little boy from up the street.  He was 8 and I don't remember his name,  What I do remember is that we never saw his parents and the kid was always around us.  I guess I am just paranoid, but I like the know where my babies are at all times.

S'more.  mmmmmm.

This boy loves marshmallows!

The next time I go camping I would like a camper with A/C or maybe just a different time of year.  It was nice not wearing make-up for a couple days!