Camping, aka Eating My Words

You probably don't remember, but a couple of years ago I did a long blog post/rant about how I would never go camping again. At the time Sweetheart was just teeny and we had no idea that Princess would be coming along. Since that time we have had two summer vacations with CG and I somehow managed to avoid camping both summers, although we came close by showing up when my family was camping for a meal or two, and by spending time up at Marquis's parent's timeshare at East Canyon.

And now this is where I eat my words, because here's the thing. These kids? They're pretty cute. And I kinda like them. And all that stuff that comes with camping, the dirt, the bugs, the being outside and sleeping in tents? That's good for them. Darn kids!!! Gah.

Here's what Sweetheart looks like the morning after waking up in a tent.

She looks worried in the pic, but she had a grand time, and had no problems falling asleep there at all. In fact, right after dinner she announced that she was going to bed, and so she went into the tent, took off her shoes and climbed in her sleeping bag. Then her mean mother made her come back out and eat a S'more before letting her go back to bed for real. When she did go back to bed, she simply rolled over and fell asleep, and slept great all night, easy peasy.

Princess on the other hand...

This is her playing in the pack'n'play outside in the sun the next morning. The pack'n'play didn't get used at all that night because Princess decided to scream, and scream, and SCREAM. All. Night. Long. Ok, maybe not all night, but it was a really long night, and Princess spent most of it sleeping on Marquis's chest, which she hasn't done since she was teeny. Of course, that left Marquis stuck on his back all night, and the poor guy was sore for days.

One of the reasons we love where we live is because some good friends of ours live just down the street. CG and their oldest daughter have been friends since they were toddlers, and it is so nice to have a friend around for CG when she comes. We invited them on the camping trip with us, and I'm so glad we did! Their oldest daughter is also super good with Sweetheart and Princess, which is nice.

Here it is, proof that I was there.

One of the things I do enjoy about camping is that Marquis can work miracles in a dutch oven. The food was excellent, as always. And Marquis got to play with fire, so he was a happy boy!

Here we are, enjoying the sun and trying to warm up from a rather nippy night.

Marquis didn't stake our tent down, which was just fine until it got a little gusty. Our friend's younger daughter came to my rescue. She was so good at hammering those tent stakes in. It sure didn't blow away after that!

Here she is with my Sweetheart, isn't she a cutie? Sweetheart doesn't get many Kool-Aid type drinks at home, so when she had access to the one we had there she went a little overboard and stained her face a bit. And I didn't clean it, because hey, we were camping! Dirt and mess rules, right? Right?

The one pic of CG I got is this one, and you can't even see her head! Whoops!

Notice Princess's jammies. In the first pic of her in the pack'n'play at the top she is wearing a pink pair with flowers. Then in the middle two pics of her she is in white ones with purple sleeves. And then in this last one, a pink pair with ladybugs. At night she wore all three just layered, and these pics show how we stripped off one layer at a time as the day warmed up.

So here is the final word on camping. For now anyway. I obviously still prefer not doing it, but for these sweet kids, I will. My sweet Marquis studied different sites for about a week before he found this one, just trying to find something that would make me as comfortable as possible. He did a great job, this place had great bathrooms that not only flushed, but had electric lights and hot showers (bliss!), and we could just walk down to the reservoir and do a little fishing. Hooray for fishing! But that is another post all it's own.