Saturday, July 26, 2008

Camping Trial

Friday night was designated Family Camp Out night. The kids have been looking forward to this all month long - since they found out it was on the calendar. When it started pouring that morning they kept their fingers crossed it would end quickly. But each kid could only cross one finger - two fingers are considered bad luck. Superstitions haven't changed since I was a kid!

So, 5pm on Friday we were on vacation! We all helped pitch the tent. The instructions fell to pieces - literally - so we hope we remember how to do this in the future! It really didn't take us long to get it set up and the kids were in and out every two seconds! Mike and I honestly didn't remember our tent looking like this - it's been awhile!



Then we all headed inside and grabbed our gear: swimsuits, towels, cooler with all our food, sleeping paraphernalia (which included favorite stuffed animals and blankets). The kids soon found out that on a real camping trip they are going to have to be more selective with what they bring. Mike is trying to figure out how to get us all to give up our pillows. That's going to be a hard sell, but good luck to him.

We had a great dinner. Hot dogs fire roasted (a.k.a. cooked on a stick over the flames), some chips, pop, and s'mores for dessert. We sat outside until about 9:30 then headed into the tent for a couple rousing games of Skip-Bo (card game) and then a ghost story read to us by Maddie. It actually was a fairly good one and I was a little nervous Jake would wake up screaming, but they thought the ending was funny and not frightening. This was slightly disturbing to me because the end of the story was the girl and the ghost figuring out how to get revenge on the mom.

So this was our trial and I'd say we passed and we hope to head out to a real campsite before the end of summer. But in all honsety, this was the perfect set-up for me.

Tent - good.
Available, clean restrooms - check.
Private beach, no fish nibbling at toes - awesome.
Own campfire - great.

You just can't go wrong in your own backyard!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, It sounds like it would be a blast to do. So how were the bugs since they like to bug you when you are camping? Looks fun.
Missy

Kerry said...

The bugs were not buggy at all! We actually enjoyed the night. Although I was telling the kids every 5 seconds to zip up the tent so the bugs stayed out. I think I more "bugged" them. :)