camp strike out

We've been living in a campground for 2 months now so I figured it was high time we did a little camping of our own. I laugh (to myself of course) when visitors look at me like I'm crazy for suggesting a campsite without running water or electricity)






We are primitive campers at heart but now that we have young children there are comforts of home that I don't want to leave behind. Julia feels the same way and took charge of making sure Big Puppy came along. Me? I made sure I didn't leave my house too far behind behind.













The weather was perfect, the tent was full of books, the kids were tucked in their sleeping bags from Grandma and Grandpa, Conor was curled up at my feet....all was good - for the first 20 minutes. Then it got old. Julia was tired. Sam was squirmy. I read more stories. I sang more songs. I repositioned sleeping bags for the hundreth time. After 1 1/2 hours I gave up and took Julia into the house. I couldn't leave Sammy in the backyard by himself so he came in too. I was kicking myself for not putting Julia in her crib like usual and taking Sam camping by himself. My attempt to salvage the night went pretty well for a while. Sam and I caught lightening bugs - something I hadn't done in decades. Then we crawled into the tent to watch the three bugs we caught light up. Those ten minutes was the brightest (Ha!) of the night. It was 10:30 and he was overtired. He couldn't settle himself down and I didn't think to read him stories by flashlight at the time. By then I'd been trying for almost three hours to get them to sleep and I'd had it. What did I learn from this experience? 1) We absolutely need the pack-n-plays for my family reunion in two weeks. 2) Keep the kids up and active until they collapse at the end of the day 3) Let Daddy sleep in the tent with the kids next time.