Into The Woods

When I started this blog I had promised myself that i would be prompt and post about things as they happened, or as close to when they happened as possible. That's a great goal for a blog, if you don't have three kids. So, now I'm writing about our first experience camping two weeks after it happened. Doesn't make it any less fun for me to write, or for you to read I hope!

This was my second time camping in my life. The first being with Tim over eight years ago at a campground on a busy holiday weekend with a few friends. This was the first attempt ever with children. We're part of an incredible homeschooling community and one of the moms in our group noticed that the forecast looked ideal for camping - warm, sunny days and clear, but not too cool nights. Perfect for letting the kids run wild on the beach and then chilling out by the campfire after dinner and snoozing away on their air mattresses in the wild. (of our tent) I gathered up some gusto, our camping gear and headed out. We've had a huge tent for about six years now and have only used it once, and that was in our living room. I decided we could handle it, I could handle it - after all, I'd be with at least five other moms and their kids who we all knew well, and don't I take care of all three kids most days by myself anyway? Yes! Camping, yes we can!!!

Turns out, I wasn't so wrong either. I managed to get us all to the State Park safely, find the site that friends were kind enough to share with us, and set up our tent, chairs, air mattresses and other camping needs all by myself. I felt quite proud! We spent the day at the beach as planned and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We had the yummiest dinner back at our site, it's true everything does taste better when you're camping, and we enjoyed a beautiful campfire (our first!) and then crashed in our tent for the night.

Well, some of us crashed. Some of us crashed and then woke up at 4am inconsolable and irate due to teething and would NOT be soothed by nursing, walking or rocking until 7am. 7am also happens to be when the boys' internal alarms go off. SO, this is where I called it quits. I know, it's really a bit of an exaggeration to say we went camping when we only stayed one night, but I'm still counting it. As I said, I got all of our stuff there, we played on the beach, we saw fire, Ben played capture the flag by the fuzzy hue of glow sticks and we slept outside! IT COUNTS! We also stayed for most of that next day and enjoyed the beach and our friends again. In the end, we went camping. We left our home and played outdoors, survived and even had a good time. It all left me feeling very accomplished and encouraged for next year, when we'll go again and stay for more than a night. So long as Syda's two year molars aren't coming in that week!




Packing up!



Nate admiring a tree early in the morning - note the pjs and fuzzy slippers.



Post-camping nap lasted 4 hours

Ben went with us, but there are no pictures of him because he was off with his friends 99% of the time. It's a good thing he needed to come back to the site to eat or we may not have seen him at all.