Camping Take 2

Against what I thought would be my better judgement, we took Sam and Anna camping for the second time this summer last weekend.  I thought for sure after last summer's debacle,  it would be a long, long time before attempting it again.  However, I grew up camping with my family and spent 4 summers as a camp counselor in college, so camping is in my bones and I really want us to camp as a family often as Sam and Anna grow up.  So we went, and I braced myself for more of the same as last year:  horrible sleep by all,  sickness, bugs, crabby people, and probably whatever could go wrong, would.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses... but it was a definite improvement, and not horrible.  I only cried once. :)  (Mostly because of lack of sleep and rain holding us back from the fun we had planned.) Sam slept awfully the first night and was awake most of the time between 11:30 and 4 am. It rained Saturday morning and only cleared up when it was about naptime (figures) which shot our fun plans a little, and then rained again Sunday morning.  It would figure that the only rainy weekend so far this summer would be the one that we chose to go camping.  But besides that, no other huge negatives!

Anna slept great both nights.  Even though they went to bed late and didn't sleep late in the morning, neither child was overly cranky and we didn't have to do any time outs or endure any tantrums.  Naps were pretty good.  The camper was a savior with the rain, even if the close quarters made it challenging to entertain two 2 year olds for hours. 

Sam and Anna adored playing with their cousins and loved camping with their grandparents.

Rain wasn't going to stop us!

Going on a walk in the rain.

Going swimming when the weather cleared up after nap.

Eating first s'mores by the fire.

Sam and Anna's first bike ride.

(My disclaimer:  We do not own our own bike and trailer and therefore Sam and Anna do not have helmets yet.  It was a super short bike ride before bedtime, and that was it.  If we went one more than just this quick one, I would have certainly make sure all of us had helmets on.)

Where we were camping there was a bike trail on an old railroad bed that pass through rock tunnels.  We took Sam and Anna to the nearest tunnel by bike, the shortest tunnel at 1/4 mile long. 



Tunnel #1

When we left on Sunday, we drove to the trail by the farthest away tunnel (the longest at 3/4 mile long), walking to get down the trail this time.  Sam and Anna had so much fun walking through the dark with their flashlights, hearing their voices echo, and pretending to be trains chugging through the tunnel. Sam and Anna are in a huge train phase right now, so this was a perfect adventure to take them on.

Added bonus of a camping weekend:  Sam slept for 13 hours straight the night we got home, and still took a 3 hour nap on time the next day.  Anna slept almost as long.  Now we're pondering a trip in the camper to visit the farthest away grandparents in two weeks...  a 8 hour drive, just a two hour drive south of the Canadian Border and the farthest north Sam and Anna have ever been.