Camping Success

Our first family camping trip was a success!

I spent the day packing and cleaning on Thursday, patiently waiting for Kevin to get off work. He was supposed to leave around 3:00, but didn't actually get out until 5:00, which meant he didn't get home until 5:45 AND there were a few things that he needed to do before we could leave. So, we hit the road by 6:30 and arrived at the campground about 7:00pm. It was late. Lea was tired and we still had to set up the pop-up, unload the truck and make the beds. Oh... and we hadn't had dinner, yet! Needless to say, our first night was a mess. Lea couldn't get to sleep. She was so wound up and excited with her new "playroom". I ended up sleeping with her (she didn't fall asleep until about 10 or 10:30pm!) and Kevin slept with the dog. Since I didn't have time to get everything set up before bed, the curtains weren't hung... which meant the sun came right in and woke up Lea bright & early Friday morning. :)

From then on, our weekend was very nice. Kevin actually had to head back into the office for a half day on Friday so Lea, Bailey and myself played around the campsite and went for a long walk before Lea was ready for her nap. She went right to sleep this time and slept for over 2 hours. (I took the opportunity to take a short nap, too, thank-you-very-much) I was awoken by my dad calling to say bad storms were headed our way. And boy were they ever bad?! It rained, poured and thundered for H O U R S. I took Lea and Bailey in the car to just drive around for a bit (away from the storms) because I didn't want to be cooped up in the camper alone (Kevin was still at work). My dad ended up coming to visit and then Kevin finally got back. We sat in the camper and talked... and talked... and talked... until my dad was bored enough to finally leave. Then, we drove the Target to get a board game (we forgot to pack some games... we actually forgot a lot of things). After a yummy, camping style spaghetti dinner and another nice, long walk, Lea went to bed. She went right down, again, and Kevin and I actually stayed up in the camper playing our game, quietly, while she slept.

The next day, Saturday, we had beautiful weather. We walked down to the lake to let Bailey & Lea run around before Lea's nap time. After her nap, we packed up and went back to the lake for a few hours. Lea had so much fun playing in the sandy clay and swimming in the water. Bailey went swimming, too but mostly stayed under the trees, in the shade. That night we had hot dogs with green beans and s'mores for dessert. YUM!

My parents came up Sunday, our last day there, to take us all out on their boat. Lea loves riding in the boat... Bailey? Not so much. lol Lea fell asleep on the boat and we headed back to the campsite to pack everything up. It took us an hour at the most to get everything packed, loaded and the camper down. We were home way before dinner time.

I'm very pleased with out little camping trip and am looking forward to many more in the future. Lea loves being outside so much and really enjoys playing with sticks, "pie-coes" (pine cones) and dirt. She didn't miss her toys a bit... but when we got home, she played with her toys so quietly for quite some time. It was like she was thinking, "Oh, I forgot about this... and THIS... oooh, and this, too!"

Here are a few pics from the trip. I forgot my camera when we were on the lake and in the boat :(



Spaghetti!

 



Peek-a-boo!

 

Waiting for daddy to cook the hot dogs.



S'mores!



Playing with daddy before bed.

Let's go camping!

Tomorrow afternoon we will leave our driveway pulling the pop-up camper behind us. I am really excited! We got the camper awhile ago, used. Kevin has been working on little things when he has some free time (which isn't very often!). I still want to do some little updates to it... mostly aesthetic things like painting, making slipcovers for the bench seats and possibly replacing the curtains. It's in camping condition now, though, so what better time than now?! Hopefully, everything will work and nothing will break while we're out there. I'm anxious to see how Lea will do sleeping & napping in a camper. Since she goes to bed much earlier than us, we'll have to hang out outside until we're ready for bed. Should be interesting!

Here's a couple pics from when we first bought it...

Holy cow!!! Just realized that we bought this thing a YEAR ago! We'll be staying at the lake for three nights... and hopfully all returning happy campers. :) I'll post pics next week.

My baby girl is growing up!

We had a fabulous weekend together. Saturday we spent the day in our "new" pop up cleaning and learning how things are put together. Lea loved crawling around on the beds. I think she'll really enjoy camping! We're excited to go out one weekend after we get back from vacation.

Lea's really been practicing waving. If you say "Hello" or "Bye Bye" while waving to her, she'll eventually start to flap her arm. It's so cute! The other "trick" she's learning is giving kisses. Just say, "Can I have a kiss?" and pucker up... she'll open her mouth, lean in towards your face (while also slightly sticking out her tongue) and give you a nice, wet kiss. I love it!!! Finally, she's really getting into 'cruising' around on the furniture. She can pull to standing on anything, including my legs, the coffee table, the dishwasher door, kitchen chairs, her high chair, the back door... you name it and she can pull up on it. Here's a pic of Lea and Bailey waiting by the back door for Daddy to come home.

 Now that Lea is a pro at crawling (and fast!) she races over to the door when I (or Daddy) get home from work. It's such a fabulous thing to come home to!

Sunday we spent the day at the Museum of Life + Science. We had a blast checking out the farm animals, the butterfly house, he dinosaur walk and there was even a small area indoors where babys and toddlers could crawl around and play. Once Lea gets older, we'll be going there more often for sure.

Now we're getting ready for our vacation. It's a little overwhelming packing for a baby. I know there are many things that we can (and will) buy once we're there... diapers, wipes, baby food, Cheerios, etc. But, I'm more concerned about what to pack in our carry on to keep Lea happy during the flights! Sippy cup, snacks, blankie, pacifier, a book?, toys?, teether?... If you have any must-have suggestions, please let me know. :)