Camping is fun!

Well is camping fun? Hmmm camping is fun, if and only if you decide to have fun in spite of everything crazy that happens. We took our two children, Colton almost three years old and Cherish 4 months old, on a camping trip for the first time. My husband Brian and I knew it would be tough...we've both been camping when we were kids and we camped a few times when we were first married, but we had not done it in quite awhile, we are older now, and we have never camped with our two little ones. We said this would be our "learning" trip, because we knew enough about camping to know things never go the way they are planned. I wanted to do two nights, but my husband said we should just try one night first and he was right...(he usually is...lol). So we loaded everything up, Colton was so excited, we told him we were going camping and he couldn't wait, even though he had no idea what we were talking about, he could tell we were excited about it. He couldn't understand why it was taking so long to get there, once we started driving. He kept saying he wanted "to go camping". We finally arrived at the State Park campsite and started setting up the tent. It was so beautiful in the mountains and I loved the fresh air! Colton really enjoyed helping to set up the tent. We unloaded everything we needed and than I took a little stroll down a path to the river with Colton and Cherish. There was another way, but I didn't want Colton to know that, since I was afraid my "water boy" would try and go in the cold river. Later we just relaxed and watched Colton who had lots of fun running around and thankfully we didn't have anyone camping in the campsites on each side of us. There were some people in RVs and travel trailers, but not too close to us. Colton loved the water spout and spent most of his time playing in the water and chasing or pulling our dog Duchess around on her leash. What a good patient dog we have! Finally my husband built a campfire...one of my favorite things about camping, and we roasted marshmallows before we had supper...lol. By suppertime it was getting cold outside...it gets really cold in the mountains at night and so Colton snuggled up on my lap while we ate supper. Cherish was sleeping in her carseat on the picnic table. All of a sudden Colton jumped up and ran to the tent and threw up in it, all over the diaper bag, one of the sleeping bags and on his clothes. Brian cleaned up the tent and I changed Colton's clothes. Colton seemed fine after that, but the "fun" was just beginning. Soon it was almost dark, so I bundled up the kids in layers of clothes, while my husband put away the food. We gathered in the tent and had a evening prayer. We laid down on our sleeping bags and realized how hard the ground is and that we had forgot pillows. There was lots of laughter and giggles though in spite of everything, even though both of us were thinking "what did we get ourselves into". The kids would not settle down and go to sleep. Also we could hear traffic going by on the freeway, which was annoying, but I figured it's a small price to pay to be at a campsite that has bathrooms, instead of an outhouse or even worse digging a hole...haha. Colton kept saying "a lion is coming" and seemed a little scared, which at first we couldn't figure out what he was talking about, but he thought the trucks going by on the freeway were "lion's roaring". Finally we convinced him that it was safe and he snuggled up with us and eventually went to sleep, by the time he fell asleep, Cherish was awake again and the rest of the night was that way. Cherish was fussy and Colton kept waking up crying. It was sooooo cold. At one point I thought we would have to pack up and go home, because of the cold and Cherish seemed to have a stomachache, but between my husband and I rubbing Colton's head or back and cuddling with him and comforting Cherish, changing diapers and outfits when her diaper leaked, rocking, nursing, and holding her to keep her warm, we finally made it through the long cold night. We were so glad when morning came and the sun started shining and warming us up at 7:00. Colton said "go home", which he never says by the way, and I said "camping makes you appreciate home". Brian got up and started a fire and Colton forgot about going home and quickly jumped up and couldn't get his boots on fast enough to go outside. Brian made a yummy breakfast on the little campstove and I fed Cherish and kept Colton from running off too far. After eating breakfast and taking down the tent and packing everything up, we decided we were ready to go home, Colton didn't want to leave, but our dog ran and jumped in the car. On the way home we discussed what we would do differently next time, yes we are planning a next time, we decided we did have fun and chalked up all the "not so fun" to part of the camping experience and part of the fun is the joy in your child's eyes as he discovers new things and making memories with our children that we will never forget and to be able to look back at and laugh, because we want our children to remember fun times camping just like we did when we were kids. So yes camping is fun and well it's harder with two little ones, but we agreed we couldn't ever imagine camping without our children now, because it made it even more interesting and enjoyable! :-)