Our First Family Camping Trip

So a few Fridays ago, N and I decided to take a VERY spontaneous camping trip with the boys. Spontaneous as in we decided to go around 5:15pm and had the truck packed by 6:15pm. Dinner on the road, picked up some groceries on the way, and we were headed into a weekend adventure with our two monkeys. The boys fell asleep on the way, which was fine. We let them sleep in the heated truck while we set up camp. By the time we got the basic gear set up for the night and pulled the boys into the tent, it was close to midnight.

The funny thing about the night: I had forgotten that cats in heat sound very similar to crying babies. And crying babies sound like cats in heat. I learned quickly that night that when Bubba cried to eat, I had to get him taken care of pronto! Several times that night we had feral cats just outside of our tent howling in unison with our little baby! LOL! It was a little creepy, but it was funny.


First thing in the morning, Monkey is chillin' (literally) while Daddy builds a fire...



Mr. Bubba, as usual, just happy to be here...



We discovered the first morning that some point after we went to sleep, we had some visitors that tried to steal our food. Evidenced by the paw prints that we found all over our site...



When they realized our food was packed up pretty tightly, they decided to nibble on some other things...yum.



We spent the weekend taking walks...



Feeding the local geese...



Had geology lessons with the rocks found on the walks...



Tackled Daddy for a little wrestling...



"Cooked" up some snacks by the fire...



We were having so much fun, that naptime took a little extra effort to get implemented...



But when it finally happened, it happened hard...



The second day we had some more fun. We chilled out at the campfire...





Sang songs. Mostly "ABC's" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider"...



Played games. Mostly "peach-a-boo"...





Helped Daddy gather some fire wood...



Played at the campsite playground and learned to "pump and swing"...



Snuggled with babies to keep warm...



"Oh no! Table fall down!" (The water levels were up because of all the rain.)



Skipped rocks in the lake...



Camping has always been the way N and I reconnect and find a new sense of peace in ourselves and each other. While we didn't really have any "down" time to experience the peace, all in all, it was a really wonderful trip! Looking back, I think the only reason I agreed to such a spontaneous event with two little ones, was because I'd had a glass of wine when N asked me. Ha! But watching Monkey run off a ton of steam outdoors and experience one of our favorite things to do, made it all worthwhile. We're already looking forward to doing it again in the spring!