I'm a happy camper said not me

Here's my experiences with camping: Family: We'd take summer trips to upstate NY when I was younger and at times, to avoid motel stays, we'd "camp" as a family in our 2 man pup tent at rest stops. Enough said. Girls camp: As a youth in the church, I was exposed to the famous/infamous week of "girls camp." I lived in TX at the time. My first experience was quick. We set up our tents, got hit with a massive TX down pour, my youth leaders themselves not campers, instructed us to take down our tents and we headed back home. Girls camp was over and done with in about 4 hours, travel time included. My 2nd year of girls camp was better. We lasted the entire week. I remember actually liking it, except for our "hour long hike." I remember being led by an older young woman (figure that out) who didn't want to get lost, so we literally hiked the perimeter of the camp site for a total of 1 hour. My 3rd and 4th years I was in Germany and wouldn't even give it a chance. I avoided camping until about 6.5 years ago when Matt decided to take the family camping, so this included me. We went to Sherando Lake. Super nice, family friendly place. We had a 10 month old who liked putting dirt and twigs and small pebbles in her mouth. It was about 145 degrees hot. With scorching temps comes tantrum throwing weather, so about 2 days in, we got rained out and even Matt felt it was best to quickly take down the tent, pack us up, and go home. I got stuck with 80 pounds of wet, sandy, twiggy clothes to wash. Here's the thing. Why CHOOSE to kick against modern advances such as the roof, stoves, beds, and front doors? The idea of spending a whole day to pack up a pretend house with pretend bedding and pretend stoves to sleep in the woods with not pretend bears, not pretend bees, and not pretend dirt in my pretend pillow just doesn't sound fun to me. However, I'm the only one EVER that feels this way. My husband, my children, my closest of friends, all feel that camping is only trumped by a million dollar lottery win. That said, last week Matt and I took the kids, along with 3 other families, to our Jelly Stone CAMP resort. The kids could. Not. WAIT. The things a mother will do for her off spring. Seeing how excited my children were, simply took the CHOICE out of my options. I was going. And I was going HAPPILY. The thing I learned about Jelly Stone. It's pretty cool! I actually, dare I say it? Was having fun!! Our camp sites were all next to each other, so pure hang out, chatting fun. Kids, there were 17 total, LOVED both the activities and doing the activities together. Jarrett made this dish called "paella" (or something like that) that was AMAZING (who knew anything cooked in a pretend kitchen could be so good?) They had a water park that I LOVED. It had a splash park, a pool, and best yet, water tubes (that I only got to ride a few times though cuz Matt hogged it all, leaving me with Riley so he could have his jolly fun times.) I'm just blabbing now, but I can't emphasize it enough. The kids loved it so much, how could a parent not? Seeing your kids happy, the good, healthy kind of happy, makes anything worth while. It was all going great to the point that I told Matt, "You know, I could totally camp here all the time. This is great! I like it!" Apparently, I am cursed. About 2 hours later, after eating the best burgers EVER, the sky went from gorgeous blue to murkey grey. We grabbed the kids and raced to the game room to wait out Mother Nature's tantrum. Matt feels that staking tents down is over rated. Especially when it's nice outside. That's why both our tents blew over. I mean, really, why stake things down that come with stakes and loops to put stakes through? After the storm sorta blew over, we returned to our campsite, or better yet, our pretend home that got beat down by the not pretend storm, and all of our soaking wet pretend crap. Long story short, families shuffled around to accomodate our not pretend short sightedness and Matt and I slept in Alicia's tent with 4 of our kids. Right before he fell asleep, with me sitting up nursing a very hot and cranky 9 month old, Matt goes, "sorry I got you into this." I didn't even respond because it would have NOT been pretend nothing!!!! That morning, we all packed up, just a few hours earlier than we would have if it hadn't been for the rain, and planned to end the trip on a good note by driving out to a Pancake house. That sounded good. So good that I stepped on a yellow jacket. But that's OK, cuz that's what camping's all about!! Anyways, I was in better spirits knowing we were heading out to a yummy breakfast and knowing I'd be able to end the trip with some fun, healthy chatting with my besties and of course the kids were excited to brunch with their buddies. So off we drove. We pulled up to the restaurant where everyone was waiting for us. Excited, I rolled down the window, wondering what they were all laughing and chatting about. "It's closed" Missy and Laura said. "For renovations." Of course it's closed. It's the only way to end a camping experience that includes me. It's been 2 days now since we camped at Jelly Stone. The kids are still talking about it. We're going to have to go back. They loved it. Here's the thing. I want my kids to have wonderful memories of their childhood. I want them to be able to do things I never did. This makes me all the more grateful to my husband, and also to my friends. They're all fun parents. I know that if I simply piggy back with them, do the fun things they are already doing, I'll be able to give my kids what I want that I can't on my own. I kept my moaning and groaning to myself (and to Matt and my friends) simply because I don't want to influence my kids for the negative regarding camping. And I think it worked. Tonight my daughter said, "I miss camping. I even miss the storms." Thanks guys for giving my kids the best camping trip ever.