Camping

I should title this "Why do we do these things to ourselves?"

Why do we pack our car as full to the top as possible, leaving just enough room to see out the back window, drive miles away from home to the forest, just to sleep on the hard ground in a cold tent, have to pee behind bushes, put on so much bug spray that we are literally as sticky as a fly trap, and cook our meals on a fire?

The whole time I kept thinking to myself, well you have more than the pioneers did, so stop complaining.
Seriously, I really do love to go camping. Next time though, we are getting an airmattress. Even not being pregnant, I don't think anyone could have slept on the ground that hard without experiencing the excruciating back and hip pain I did.
We were so excited to introduce Thomas to camping. He is such an outdoors boy, we knew he was just going to love it. The first night he just wanted to go back home, to his own bed, for his own usual routine. He finally got settled down and slept ok in his sleepingbag. But the instant he woke up in the morning, he still wanted to go home, again, back to his usual routine. We made him some makeshift NOG, and got him warmed up by a fire, and once everyone else decided to get out of their snuggly beds (10am) he was finally content. Shelly and Jared came up, and later AJ, Jessie, and Zoee too. So Thomas had lots of fun with all his aunts and uncles there.
That night he was much more content. We had him up a little later, he got to watch the fire, and snuggle with his daddy. And when he laid down in his sleepingbag, he was instantly asleep. He kept waking up and telling us to turn the light on, though, so we'd turn on the flashlight for a few minutes til he zonked back out again.
He woke up very happy the next day! I was glad that we had enough days for him stay two nights, one would not have been good enough, and he would have hated his camping experience.
Here are a few shots!







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