"backpacking" in cedar hill

One thing I love about Kevin is his crazy ideas.  He took the week off work and thought it would be fun to go camping.  The catch: we could only bring what we could carry in our packs.  The kids were all in and the whole packing process was pretty comical. 

The first order of business was having bags to pack in.  Kevin asked his mom to find his old scout backpacking pack out of the attic, which she did.  Then we used one of Kevin's old mission backpacks, and our two big backpacks from our 72 hour kits. 

The trickiest part was definitely getting the sleeping bags and mats attached to the kids' backpacks.  We finally managed to attach everything to Colby's pack, but it was so long he couldn't really walk, haha.  So, we ended up just planning on having him carry his sleeping bag+mat. 

All loaded up and ready to go!!

We drove over to Cedar Hill State Park, which is only about 12 minutes from our house, and began our adventure. We checked into the office, then drove away in search of a campsite.  We were immediately greeted by a whole group of the most beautiful fawn standing right next to the road.  Things were off to a good start!  We found the best campsite with bluebonnets, then went back to the office to pay for our site.

Since this was supposed to be a backpacking adventure, we parked what we thought was a mile from our campsite, and loaded up our gear to make the trek. 

We knew we would have to come back for the truck since we needed all our wood and we wanted to park at our site, but when Kevin suggested leaving the tent in the truck, I told him that was massively cheating.  His rule was that we packed everything we needed (besides the wood), so he strategically placed the tent between his pack and the back of his head, haha.  I was seriously laughing so hard.

Then we were off...

We walked along the lake on our way to our campsite, and Colby was already asking to go fishing. 

Once we reached our site, Kevin and the kids started setting up our tent and I went back for the truck.  Turns out that we only parked 1/2 mile away from our campsite, but it was still a fun experience.  (When I posted about this on Instagram, my friend Tracy commented, "Best backpacking trip ever! I'm following Kevin for more camping tips!" So funny, haha.)

We almost ran out of matches before we got our fire going, but we did it!!  That's what we get for thinking we could use matches from a super old backpack. 

One of the best parts of the adventure was cooking our dinner together as the sun went down.  Kevin had helped the kids pack their dinners that morning and Colby ended up bringing a can of black beans for his meal.  Kevin suggested a can of soup, but since Colby doesn't really care for soup, he wanted to bring a can of olives.  When Kevin questioned that choice, he changed it to black beans "if they were like the ones at Chipotle."  He didn't eat a ton of them, but luckily he also brought some saltine crackers to fill his little tummy. 

Waking up to this sweet face was pretty priceless! I hardly slept all night because of the massive thunder and lightening storm that was directly over us, but the kids slept through it all.  Kevin even commented that it was a "real life sound machine." 

Part two of our camping adventure was fishing.  We didn't catch a thing, but we sure had fun trying.  This little pond was so picturesque. 

I could watch them all day.  I cast a few lines just for fun, but I prefer to just watch their little faces and see their determination. 

Kevin spotted a huge toad near the shore, but no matter what we threw near him, he remained perfectly still.  

Brooke and I headed back to the car for marshmallows to throw to the toad and took a picture on the way back.

Even the marshmallows didn't make that toad move!

We walked to the other side of the fishing dock and found a cute little wooden fishing house.  The windows made the perfect "framed picture" of the view. 

We eventually left the pond area and tried our luck on the main body of Joe Pool Lake, but still didn't have any luck! 

Colby was most disappointed in our lack of success, but it wasn't for a lack of trying!  I felt so grateful for a fun adventure with my little family. The only thing I would change is having a more comfortable sleeping mat so I could sleep a little better. I don't function well on minimal sleep, haha. 

Oh, and maybe next time we'll go on a more legit backpacking trip!