Camping at Toledo Bend

I love fall! I love it, love it, love it! First of all, you can not comfortably camp here during the heat of summer! Heck, even during the fall unless you get lucky like we did. We had warm days that were a tad over cast, and nights that were ALMOST cool if you laid really still..haha. So over all the weather was lovely. The bugs however! HOLY BALLS BATMAN! We had bug spray and glade "off" fans but to no avail. My feet are thoroughly covered in mosquito bites. Bites or no bites there is nothing that can compare to the smell of a good camp fire, swimming in the murky lake, having no cell phones, no tv, walkie talkies and a beaver skull (lovingly nick named BOB by Michael..EWW EWEWEWEW!). We had some people pull in on our second night there who had a pop up trailer and spent about 3 hours setting up, hooking up a generator and even hanging outdoor lights, but their kids were stuck inside eating on the hot plate and watching dvds.....is that even considered camping? I am grateful that my little family had a blast, electronics free, bug infested and all the other fun camping has to offer.
A few of the awesome things we did while out there:
1: Put up out tents in the pitch black.
2: Foraged for fire wood in the dark, there wasn't enough and the next day had to drive
15 miles and pick up fire wood out of the tree line. Can we say REDNECK much?

3: Cooked some tin foil dinners and chowed down in the dark...ooohhhh the bliss that is
carrots, onions, red potatoes, and ground chuck! SIGH something this baby will actually
let me hold down.lol
4: Swimming in the NASTY murky lake! (WOW the MWR's photographer is AMAZING,
because this place looked AWESOME online, the actual camp site was TINY, and soooo
back woods, WOWZA, but no matter what the kids had a blast with Matt, and the cool water
felt great on swollen feet!

5: listened to fish jump in the water all night, out tents were right on the water, it was rather
nice.
6: Matthew attempted to complete a "flying squirrel" off the see-saw and didn't quiet stick
the landing, busted open his chin and got a wicked bruise. He blamed his flying leap off
on Cody skyrocketing him...lol I agree.

7: Got annoyed that our camping neighbors had a mini schnauzer puppy that was a non
stop yipper! I am sooooooooo glad we have a dog that is almost 100% silent! She barked
in excitement 2x the entire time we were out there, despite all the people, all the dogs and
so on! YAY cupcake!

I have to say, one of my favorite moments of the entire trip was the sense of humor my family has! We bought walkie talkies for the kids to play with and so on. Matt helped them pick call signs. Matt was Apache Red Five Delta. Michael was Comando (seeing as he doesn't ever wear underoo's unless forced), Cody was HULK, and Matty was Lightening McQueen. Matty like running over to the play ground equipment (within eye sight) with a walkie talkie clipped to his shorts so we didn't have to yell. We would do a check in with him and he would lift his leg funny and try talking to his thigh as though it wasn't necessary to hold down the button, we got a real giggle out of that. Cody however had me almost falling out of my camp chair when over the walkie we hear...."Apache Redneck Delta....come in...over" Matt's face was classic! "Did you just call me Apache Redneck??" "Ya that's your call sign right?" Sigh....that and Matty would sit in his chair saying "Roger.....roger that" over and over and over to everything the boys said on the walkies. Ah fun times!