Camping 101

After nearly 10 years of marriage and 3 children Sam and I decided it was time to go on our very first family camp out. The last time I went camping in a tent was girls camp when I was 16. Other than that, I can only remember going tent camping one time as a child. (CORRECTION: My mom just informed me that this is not true. Apparently went tent camping every year (much to her displeasure) for the first 9 or so years of my life and is disappointed that I do not have better recall of this since she did it just for us.) Needless to say I was a little unsure about how things would go. Thankfully, it was much less "dirty" than I remember and even more enjoyable than I had anticipated.

We got to the campsite a little late, but still in time to enjoy hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire before breaking in our brand new and very large tent. The kids can't get over how huge it is and think it's awesome that Sam can stand up in it. Aside from our new tent we were a little slim on camping equipment. Thankfully, we were meeting the much more prepared Bywaters so we still did just fine. Even so, Sam ended up using a leatherman to chop up some firewood.



Here is Ruby with our new and wonderful tent.


The next morning everyone woke up pretty chipper...even Ruby who did the last couple hours in the truck with Sam. The tent was great---but even the best tent sits on very hard ground and without the proper padding it was a long night for Sam and I.


Max hanging out with Oliver.


For breakfast in the morning, the Bywaters made blueberry pancakes in their fancy dutch oven.
We brought donuts. They were kind enough to share their pancakes and wonderful mountain man breakfast.


While breakfast was cooking, Robyn and I took the kids down to the little campsite playground where Ruby and Isabel got to know one another a little better. She's learning to play with others, but she still has the tendency to bump people out of her space.


Ruby also enjoyed discovering the fact that for Sam camping is synonymous with indulging in junk food.


My pictures are a little heavy on Ruby, but that's only because the other kids were too busy running around having fun playing spies and exploring. The campsite was really beautiful...even Ruby kept looking up and pointing at the trees saying "This! This!!"


Sam snapped a few pictures of Ruby and me, but of course the only one I feel comfortable posting has me looking away. The campsite was beautiful...I was not.


I did try to take pictures of the boys, but this is what happens when you take too many pictures of your children. They run out of regular faces and start using strange ones. Reed says this is his "spook face" I have no idea what that means.


After breakfast we packed up and headed out on a quick hike. I tried to take a picture right before we headed out, but even my "Hey! Look over here" resulted in exactly zero children looking in my direction.
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It was our first. It was great, and I'm sure there are many more to come.