I’m going to get personal here and explain why our 2016 camping season was cut short. We were so excited to have a full season of camping this year, but we didn’t take our first camping trip until July… March 31, 2016. The camper was prepped and packed, ready to leave for our first camping trip to North Carolina the next morning. Chris unexpectedly came home from work early because he could barely stand up. He had a fever and went to lay down for a bit. His fever got up to 105 and we headed to the hospital. Long story short, Chris was severely septic and stayed in the hospital for eight days until his organs recovered.

He was discharged for less than 24 hours before he developed another fever and headed back to the hospital. This time, the doctors discovered he had a perforation on his small intestines and needed emergency surgery.  He had a small bowel resection to remove six inches of his small intestines… The surgery was supposed to be done laparoscopically, but ultimately they had to go in surgically.  Chris was left with a 7 inch open incision on his abdomen and thus, he remained in the hospital for twelve nights this time.

Chris was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and he has adjusted his lifestyle to minimize any future flare ups. He was discharged (the final time) on April 20, 2016 and still had a long road to recovery ahead of him. He finally went back to work mid-June and his incision was finally healed in July.

Chris and his dad cleared a spot in the woods of our property to set up our own little camping spot. Now we were able to camp on the farm anytime we wanted in between camping trips. By June, Chris was really itching to go camping but he wasn’t ready to take a trip away from home yet, so we left the boys with Grandma and Grandpa and spent a night camping in our own woods!

It was nice to have a night away from the kids and it was so nice to be back in the camper.

In July, we took our first official camping trip of the year to Gilbert Lake State Park. We visited Chris’s friend who has a few houses in the area.

It rained a lot but we were still able to have a good time and do lots of fun things.

It was a bit cold to go in the water, but the boys were able to play on the beach for a little before before a storm rolled in and kicked us off.

It stopped raining long enough for us to hike some trails around the campground and play on the playground.

It was a short trip, but it felt good to be back in our happy place.