summer fun: win a $100 visa card

giveaway now closed

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kelloggs.

as we are quickly approaching summer's end i keep thinking...what should we stuff in before school begins.
well living in a small town our extra curricular activities are kind of limited. i mean we can go to the pool which we already have been doing every.single.day. we've only missed one or two days here and there because of the down pour plus thunder and lightning.

or we could do some more camping.
this was our summer to try out camping again.
we even got a pop up camper...oh but i'm getting ahead of myself...you need some background stories to lead up to this point...

have i mentioned that we have had nothing but really bad luck with camping?
no? hmmm? yeah.

lets just say this. the last two times we attempted big camping trips in the 12 and a half years of our marriage, have gone down in history as the worst ever experiences, and down right make you not want to talk to each other after the whole thing kind of deal.

lets start with the first time we attempted camping...go back in time if you will:

we are newly married of a year or maybe it was less? don't know it doesn't matter. we decide to go with two other couples to camp at a close to the beach location on memorial weekend. yeah well, we were young and inexperienced so we didn't reserve any location and basically ended up finding our own remote area where i'm pretty sure no one else had been before. we had to clear sage brush and a couple of cow patties to put down our tent. yup, remote.

did i forget to mention i had just found out a few weeks earlier that i was pregnant with our first son? yeah, did i also forget to mention that i was finding out real quick what morning sickness was that week? also did i forget to mention that i've since that first time of getting morning sickness had three more pregnancies that had put me in the hospital at least once for dehydration (each time) and since then decided its stupid to call something that makes you sick and throw up 20+ times a day at any time of the day or night "morning sickness"? yeah. basically i was feeling like crap, and it just got worse with the heat and the hiking of that day.

as the day went on we realized we had put up our tent in the thick of tick infested sage brushes. and every time our beige dog would accidentally hit a sage brush she would walk away looking like a dalmatian from all the ticks on her.
the next morning one of husbands woke up to a tick attached to his face right in between his eyes.

we packed up and left.

fast forward like 7 years later.

the husband had just found out he was going to be deployed for a year. we wanted to have a family vacation before everything would spin out of control with getting ready to send him over seas and not to mention filling the last requirements of hours and paperwork to graduate with his PhD.
we decided to go to lake powell seeing that it was only 2 hours away from our house.
we packed up our newly bought tent, (because we'd not tried to camp since that last time) and we got into the truck and drove off. only to blow out a tire. i mean that thing exploded and ruined the passenger side door on the husband's truck.

i vowed it to be a bad sign and wanted to turn around. the husband said he had an extra spare tire and we should press on.
we did just that.

it was a super busy weekend for lake powell...um which summer weekend is it not? anywho all was well minus the tire incident by this point. and then we decided to roast marshmallows over our little propane grill (there was a no fires allowed policy at the time...probably still is?) anyways. we started to get everything ready and the kids were pretty excited. we had lit up our lantern and the husband was trying to get the mini propane tank screwed onto the grill...well the propane tank started hissing out propane the minute the husband tried to screw it on the grill, and as the propane was spewing out it kept freezing or burning the husband's hand so he couldn't get it to stop, he jerked one way and the propane gas hit our lit lantern which caused a propane explosion. my oldest son was right in the explosion's way.
he put up his hand just in time to protect his face.
jake was able to put out the fire by grabbing the grill and throwing it into the lake.

my oldest son miraculously walked away with singed hair and a lot of burning on his right hand. nothing on his face.

we tried to nurse oldest son's hand as best as we could. but by midnight it was apparent that he had gotten badly burnt. it was blistering and oozing. so we started to pack up our camp.
our second attempt at camping and we didn't even make it through the night.
turns out we got a faulty propane tank. that was slightly stripped where you needed to screw it in to the grill. i could of sued but whatever, my kid was sort of okay and was put on antibiotics, and bandaged up for a while.

fast forward 4 years.
this summer i uttered the words "maybe we should try camping again."
the husband snorted and said "we don't do camping."
i said "yeah but this time i'm not pregnant and we aren't going to bring a faulty propane tank. the kids keep asking to do it. and anyways there are a ton of place to do it around here, we don't even need to leave town really." that was the beginning of the season. by mid season we had found a killer deal on a small pop up camper.

so we gave it a shot.

the view from our camper

we camped 10 miles away, with a convenience store only 2 and half miles down from the camp ground. my kids kept telling everyone who would listen "we're going to try camping again, but we're only going to wet our feet this time by going one night and leaving in the morning." (seriously they were parrots word for word they told everyone what we had just the night before.) the kids were excited, i was nervous, and jake was skeptical.

we had dinner, hiked, did smores, had hot chocolate, spit sunflower seeds, and went to bed all within a 4 hour spread.

at around 1 am i kept seeing a green flashing light coming from under my side of the camper...so i bent down quickly to see what it was only to not realize there was a counter there. i slammed my head so hard and so quick that i literally saw my whole world light up. "what in the...what did you just do?" the husband hissed.
i told him to touch my head where i had just slammed it and we both agreed it was a super nasty goose egg of a bump... one that could of been mistaken for bone sticking out. all he said was"of course" and i started giggling like a stupid fool. he started to laugh.
i went to bed with a bad headache.

that morning we woke up and the kids were so happy we had made it through the night. we had breakfast, spit a few sunflower seeds, and then packed it up to make it home in about 20 minutes...
and that my friends was our first official good camping experience as a family.

... i'm hooked. i loved it. the kids had a blast, and jake walked away a little less skeptical. we've been planning our next big camping trip that will be probably 15 to 20 miles away and we might extend it to two full days.

but this time i'll make sure to lay my head on the other side of the camper, and not on the side that will give me a giant goose egg.

now would you like another chance to win a $100 visa card sponsored by kelloggs and blogher?
here's what you do:
1.leave me a comment telling me what summer fun you are going to try to stuff into your last bit of summer. 2. blog, tweet, or facebook for a second shot.
please include an email address in both comments.
only two comments per email address.
thanks!!!!
make sure you check out the other 24 gals who are talking about their summer fun and also for more chances to win yourself a $100 visa card!:
BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page

here are the official rules.

Mom’s Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids’ cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. To learn more about the program, visit http://www.loveyourcereal.com