since when do i camp??

This happened weeks...perhaps even a month ago. 

But I was waiting to get more pictures from one of my friends and so I procrastinated.

This is no secret, but I do not like camping. I filled my canteen of that with 7 years of Girl's Camp. And feel like I should never been forced to sleep outdoors again, especially when I have a house and a warm comfy bed. Why trade that in for a tent and sleeping bag and no bathrooms? 

My friends had been talking about going camping for awhile now, but I figured with their poor planning skills we would never actually pull the trigger. Sadly, I was wrong and a trip was being planned. Since I had previously committed (thinking it would never go through) I had to go. 

And of course, it ended up being a ton of fun and I kept my complaining to a minimum. 

The craziest part of the trip happened right in the beginning. We had to take two cars and left at separate times, thinking the first car would go, secure a camp site and start setting up while our car had to wait a bit before we hit the road. We went camping at the Angeles Crest Forrest. It wasn't till we got up there did we realize we had no cell phone service. And with no idea where car #1 was at, we werent really sure where to go, keep in mind also it was already 9 pm and pretttttty dang dark out. We started driving around all the windy roads trying to spot Trevor's car with no luck. I for sure figured we would never find them. And perhaps at this point I was secretly hoping we wouldnt find them which would force us to go back home. At this point we decided to go back out the way we came to another camp site. As we pulled out on to the main road we saw a car coming. Troy waited for the car to pass and low and behold, it was the rest of our group. It was really crazy and perhaps not such a coincidence. 

That night we set up camp, had bean and cheese burritos, roasted s'mores and stayed up so late playing our favorite game What If. Luckily, we burned all evidence in the fire. 

We woke up in the morning to beautiful scenery that we were unable to appreciate the night before. 

The boys were really proud of themselves for climbing this rock, but this picture makes it look super lame. haha

see!? so pretty! minus the graffiti...

Those are the times I actually enjoy camping, when you realize how beautiful the middle of no where is. Then we drove out to go hiking to some waterfalls. 

 Tom was the only brave one to get in the cold water. 

Some other fun moments from camping:
Vajeni!
Rudy breaking the chair.
Rudy and Trevor and the slingshot of the marshmellow.
Trevors lame scary story.
Jeni being an expert hot dog griller.
Forgetting all condiments for our hot dogs.

So it turned out to be really fun, although I am still not the biggest fan of camping. I am always glad I went, afterwards, but dread leading up to it. I will only commit to going once a year. Thats enough. 

are we there yet??

i am not much of a camper. 

i dont like the dirt. the bugs. sleeping bags and tents. the lack of good bathrooms and running water. 

I did my time of 6+ years of girls camp, and should just enjoy the comforts of always sleeping at home. 

But somehow I promised Rudy this summer that I would go camping with him sometime. 

I said yes thinking that honestly a camping trip would never get planned. 

So when I got an email from Daniel inviting us to a trip with some LA people I knew I was screwed. 

I may or may not have bailed a few times on this trip which caused some major unforeseen drama,

but alas, I packed my bags, including enough clothes for a week long trip 

(mind you, it was a day and a half trip)

and hit the road right after work for a long trek out to Joshua Tree in the desert. 

With traffic it was a long ride out there. We rolled in at about 10pm and found all of our friends already there. 

We huddled by the camp fire and ate smores, dutch over peach cobbler and upside down pineapple cake. 

We stayed up late laughing and chatting (much to the dismay of some boring and strict married people that somehow got the invite)

We got up way to early the next morning, thanks to the guys taking down our tent while we were still in it....

Our campsite was amazing. Situated in a cove-like location surrounded by amazing rocks to climb, that the boys did right away. 

Us girls did it too, but not as fast and with such ease as the boys. 

We then drove out to the Joshua Tree National Park.

Learned that the Mormons dubbed the trees after Joshua,

and continued to climb more rocks. 

The boys left us in the dust, and us girls were satisfied with chilling, snapping some photos and soaking up the February sun. 

After more hiking, my coveted orange being stolen and eaten and chowing down on the best PB & J I have ever had after a long day, we hit the road back for the valley. 

I will admit that I had a good time. 

I love my crew! 

And I love me some smores by the campfire even more.

(And its even better when all of the food is provided for you.)

However, I think I have my fill of camping for at least another six months...