Taylors Falls

We did our first family camping trip over the weekend in Taylors Falls. Since it was still pretty wet out Saturday morning, we went out for breakfast at The Chisago House and walked some of the trails at the state park.

The kids really wanted to climb, but the rocks were still pretty damp so we didn't let them get too adventurous.

Luke liked it when you could see glimpses of the river, he's obsessed with rivers, lakes, ponds, etc.

We stayed at Wildwoods Campground. It's affiliated with Wild Mountain and all the other recreation type stuff in Taylor's Falls so we figured it would be pretty decent. It was alright, they look like they are doing some construction so there was lots of dirt (well, now mud with all the rain) and construction equipment around. Our site was a close to the bathrooms and wasn't too far from the pool and playground so that was nice. I'd stay there again for camping since I don't think there is much else to choose from if visiting Taylors Falls!

Funny story about the tent.....I had picked out a tent at Sams Club a few weeks ago and put it together last week for a test run, and it was not very nice. Huge, but poor quality. So that just went back last Tuesday and I ran around Lacrosse looking for one. Nothing. We wanted something that was good size, and not dome so Dave wouldn't have to duck so much. I've been researching them online for some time and had always liked this one http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0052572518163a&type=product&cmCat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=columbia+tent&sort=all&_D%3AhasJS=+&N=0&Nty=1&hasJS=true&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1 so I called Cabela's in Roger's on Tuesday to see if they had it in stock and they did so the plan was to pick it up on the way to Cambridge to get Emily Friday. When we get there, it happens to be on sale and all tents happen to be another % off as well, so we ended up getting it for $224 plus it also came with $20 in Cabelas bucks, so Dave got some little tackle box for free! (Luke was in awe of all the fish and animals there too, I wish I had taken the camera in!) So, we bring the tent to Nana and Papa's house and get Emily, visit for a bit, and head over to Taylors Falls. The van is pretty full so we take the tent out of the box and just have it in it's carrying suitcase thing. Run for groceries in North Branch and get on the road again. It's pretty close to 9pm when we get to the campground so we have only 30-45 minutes of daylight to put this thing up. Get everything out and organized....NO INSTRUCTIONS! Well, there were instructions, but for a Columbia Sunbeam 10 gazebo or something like that. And the box with the picture of the tent is in Cambridge. There were a few moments of "Screw this, let's just go home" and lots of swearing, but my patient, smart, husband came through and figured it out. Then the fun really began at 3am with torrential rains for 5-6 hours. We thought for sure with rain that hard (we couldn't even hear eachother talk!) no tent could handle that without leaking. But it did! Just a few drip drip type leaks at a few seams near the ground, but nothing a towel couldn't fix in the morning by wiping up along the bottom perimeter. So it all worked out, and we're pretty pleased with the tent so far.

There were lots of these while swimming!

Emily is really fun to watch swim this year! It was just last year that she would barely put her head under water and now she's jumping in and dog paddling in 6ft. of water. She just has to learn to not plug her nose! In the picture above she's sitting on the floor.

The first time we went swimming, Luke wasn't too willing to do much more than get his feet wet on the first step into the pool. He kept yelling to Emily while she was swimming...."Sissy, ur done now!" Siiiiisssssyyy! Ur done nooooow!"

They are sitting on a lion and Luke's saying "Come here lion!"

Luke finally started enjoying being in the pool since we were playing Slippery Fish, doing the motions to the song in the water. He would even jump to me from the side! That's pretty big for Luke. The pool was heated, not that warm, but the kind where it gets warmer the more you are in it. So I think he appreciated that. It was fun to see the kids enjoy the water so much!

Emily met some new friends that were at the site behind us, Jaden and Chelsi!

Jiffy Pop!

The tent has these neat bay windows on each side where the kids slept. They slope in a way so you can keep the windows open during the rain, with no leaks!

Hoping like crazy she doesn't get soaked? It rained pretty hard Saturday night too, but only for a little bit.

Good morning! Cereal in a box...isn't that a camping essential?

After packing up Sunday morning, we swam for a little bit and headed home!

Emily was out in no time, but Luke...

was being silly and looking at all the lakes on the way home talking about fishing!


Overall, a pretty nice first time camping trip! Right now, they advertise an online special of $44.95 a person for 3 days of unlimited Wild Mountain water park, scenic boat tours and canoeing down the St. Croix, so if they still have that similar thing in a few years, maybe we'll come back and try that when the kids are older. I'm glad we had fun because we get to do it all over again this weekend in Lake City!