First Tent Camping Trip of Summer - July 14, 2011

We took our first camping trip this summer to Stub Stewart campground.  It is a great campground and in the middle of week it is pretty much vacant in the tent camping section (we only saw 2 other campsites being used).  It is close to home so it was a good trial run of camping with a two year old in a tent.  Since hardly anybody was there Alesha, had a wonderful time exploring all over the campground and we didn't have to worry about her wondering into another person's campsite.  Our boys enjoyed having target practice with their air soft guns, too.

The tent area is a 1/4 mile walk in from the parking lot.  They have little carts you can use to pack your stuff into camp.  The boys and I took some odds and ends and Darin wheeled the full cart into camp.  I was impressed that Alesha walked the entire 1/4 mile herself.  She only fell once, on a big rock,  and that caused quite a loud cry that I am sure echoed for miles :-)  After the fall she was good to go gathering leaves, flowers and sticks along the way.

Alesha with some of her treasures.

Getting the fire started for dinner

Darin with Alesha

Martin's wood gathering success!

Luke's wood gathering success

The camp section we were in was really large and we had the community fire pit all to ourselves :-)

Luke, Alesha, and Martin.  It really cooled down that night.

The men got camp all set up and then Martin and Luke went on a wood gathering mission.  Dinner with smores for dessert were next on the agenda.  Then came time to put our two year old to bed.  Let's just say that Alesha was less than impressed with the tent.  As I was holding her and singing to her I looked down and her eyes were a big as saucers!  She had NO intentions on going to bed in this thing we called a tent.  I had brought her port-a-crib, because I thought it would be more familiar for her and it would help contain our active little one.  As soon as I put her in the crib, the hysterical crying began.  Thankfully I could calm her down quickly, but she made it quite clear by several other attempts to put her in the crib that the only way she was going to go to sleep was in ....wait for it...... MY sleeping bag!  I DON"T recommend this if you  plan on getting ANY sleep.  I will spare you all the details, but we will be buying Alesha her own sleeping bag and hope that sleeping NEXT to mommy will do the trick :-)

We were all awake at 6 a.m. and after some breakfast we decided it was time to pack it up and head home so mommy could recover from the horrible night I had just experienced.  Thankfully the rest of the family slept pretty good through the craziness that occurred during the night.  When we made it to the parking lot a man who was camping fairly close to us said when he saw Alesha "So you must be the little one I heard last night.  You have a very loud cry."  I apologized and he said no problem.  It didn't last long.  Overall the trip was NOT what we had planned, but we enjoyed our time together as a family enjoying God's creation.

The little cart to put all your camping gear in.

Martin pulled Alesha 1/4 mile to our campsite so we could pack up our stuff.  Alesha had a BLAST!

When I caught up with Darin, he says "Do you think this is going to work okay?"  Funny guy!   I promptly removed her and reminded him that if he has to ask me if something is okay the answer is probably no :-)

Lessons learned -

1.  Don't forget the air mattress when you are tent camping.....small gravel is not fun to sleep on.
2.  Being a girl in the woods when it comes to using the bathroom is not as easy as it is for boys!
3.  Some 2 year olds don't care for tents.
4.  Sharing a one man sleeping bag with a toddler is a disaster waiting to happen.
5.  Being in the woods allows you to take a break from the hussle and bussle of life and just enjoy God's beautiful creation and experience some quiet.
6.  Pillows are also a good idea to have when you camp.