Blog Backlog #3: Camping is Fun, FINALLY!

Words cannot express the feeling of joy that Sean and I shared last month as we drove home from our first camping trip in more than 3 years.

I grew up camping. It's part of who I am. Getting dirty, eating dogs, and roasting marshmallows while trying not to burn our faces off with them are some of the fondest memories of my sisters and my childhood. So you can imagine my dismay and disappointment after taking Alex camping at the age of 18 months and vowing to never ever do it AGAIN, ever.

And anyone that has camped with children under 3 knows what I mean when I say it was not fun. It was all work, and suffering, and strife. And oh, miserable. Maybe also excruciatingly too much work.

Granted Alex was apparently coming down with the stomach flu and vomited profusely before we even had a chance to unpack which explains the whining, the crying, and the overall suckiness of her mood. HOWEVER, some other unfortunate events occurred during our shortened 2 day camping trip. They included an infestation of ants, a blown away tent, a major (okay not so major) fall into a pot of beans (done by my sister), the failure to insert the pin into the back of the trailer causing all camping gear to fall out onto a dusty and bumpy road in the middle of a thunder & lightning storm, and...well, that's probably enough to give you a good mental picture. Wait, did I say that when we finally arrived home at 11 pm after bugging out early our garage door broke and went slamming into the ground? Oh, I didn't? Well, it did. And it's still broken.

So, words cannot express the feeling of joy that Sean and I shared last month as we drove home from our first camping trip in more than 3 years.

So what was so different this time you ask blogosphere? Well aside from all of the above NOT HAPPENING, except for the ant infestation which we cleared up by throwing all of our scraps way over there (and by golly the ants went way over there) the kids had a blast. We almost didn't have to parent them except to occasionally feed them and ask them to change their dirty clothes into some less dirty clothes. It was great.

We spent two lovely days on the boat, the kids swam, and Ian spent most likely 17 full hours digging in the dirt by the shore. Even Chip managed to mind his own business and made peace with nature. Sean managed a nap in the sun, and I spent many many hours floating on an air mattress.

We zipped around on wake boards, inner-tubes and Sean got a great kick out of surviving the biggest whip of his life and living to tell about it.

We had so much fun, we are going back for Labor Day and in celebration of our successful camping trip I bought a new tent which Sean swears the entire city of Tigard could fit in.
It has an actual door, and shelves, and a special hole to grab things out of your cooler right from your sleeping bag because apparently that's important in 21st century camping. I'm kind of ticked it doesn't have an iPhone charger overhead fan, but I'll survive.