camping in moab, utah!

hello! we’re in utah right now for my little sister’s wedding this weekend, but i wanted to share some fun photos from monday and tuesday when we went camping in moab utah! since we were in colorado, and we planned on heading to utah afterwards for my sister’s wedding, we figured we’d make a road trip out of it and drive and camp along the way! my dad was sweet enough to ship a tent, sleeping pads and sleeping bags to our hotel in colorado so we wouldn’t have to buy or haul a bunch of camping gear with us.

i grew up camping with my family since i was a little girl, and josh kept pointing out how giddy i was the entire time we camped because he said it brought out this side of me where i just get so excited to show my own kids the things i enjoyed when i was their age! silly stuff like making shadow puppets with flashlights in the tent once it’s dark outside to roasting hot dogs and s’mores around the campfire playing games. i am not very outdoors-y, but i love me a good camping trip! some of my favorite childhood memories involve camping with my family so it’s fun to begin those adventures with children of my own now!

we didn’t know what to expect camping with the kids, but they did a great job and we all had a good time. of course, i credit a lot of this to the fact that we weren’t “legit camping” where you’re cooking up a storm of delicious food right at the campsite and staying for a solid few days. we only camped for one night and we brought along a bucket of fried chicken and rolls for dinner and only roasted hot dogs and s’mores to make it easier on us. and then we just did simple stuff like fruit for breakfast. we’ll ease into the hard core stuff once we have things better figured out!

we also weren’t sure where we were going to camp exactly, since moab is a popular place and most of the campgrounds we researched ahead of time were full. but we sometimes like to just push our luck and stay optimistic so we drove in around 6pm and started visiting some first come first serve sites we learned about. we found a couple beautiful open campsites right along the colorado river in moab! we could not believe it! i think the exact site we found was called hal canyon if anyone is familiar or interested for the future. it worked great! also, the most epic thunder and lightening storm took place literally just after the kids went to sleep and it was kind of crazy amazing to be dry and warm in a tent on the ground while such a loud and shaking storm was taking place around us!

a few photos from our night of camping!

eleanor and samson were such sweet little helpers helping set the tent up with their papa!

these photographs of eleanor when she woke up the following morning are some of my favorites of her. the kids slept great through the night. samson woke up just once and asked to sleep with josh. and then in the morning eleanor asked to cuddle with her mama while josh took samson out to potty (he took conrad, too). she asked me lots of questions about sleeping bags and tents and bugs. then i snapped these sweet photos of her being silly and it was one of those moments where i just couldn’t believe i was the grown up on this camping trip with my kids! like, how am i old enough to be calling the shots and taking my kids camping!!!!??!?! so weird sometimes when you think about it.

we wandered down to the colorado river after breakfast the following morning and josh found this rope someone tied into a tree to make a swing for the water! we weren’t exactly brave or daring enough to go swimming in the river at 8-something in the morning, but josh still made use of the rope! haha! you can see a video of him swinging right here on his instagram.

some fried chicken and hawaiian rolls for dinner monday night! haha! does it get any better than that!? (well yes, yes it can with a dutch oven and my favorite chicken and dumpling meal my mom makes from scratch over a campfire, but ok… next best thing?)

this looks so good right now i’m tempted to go into my parents kitchen and make another over the stove!

this was a good one for us. i’m thankful josh is always up for anything and that my kids are taking after that mentality as well! i think everyone needs to go camping underneath a clear sky of the most beautiful moon and stars at least once in their life. just make sure you bring plenty of bug spray because mosquitos are no joke and i’m so over them! ;)

ps. my sweater is from here and my vintage nike sneakers are from here (unisex sizing so be sure to size down!) samson and conrad’s super man t-shirts are from zara.

also, a camping trip blog post from when josh and i went once just the two of us before our kiddos were born (omg looking through that blog post just now was crazy. we were such babies!) and also our trip to moab utah (we stayed in a hotel last time) a few summers go, here and here and here.