This past weekend was Sarah's first experience with camping. We had slept in the tent in the backyard for the past 3 weekends, hoping to get her used to the idea of not sleeping inside, and she did really well with that. Well, this past weekend was the moment of truth. She did extremely well!
We got to Muddy Run Friday night at about 6:30, set up camp, and cooked sausages over a fire that I built, no camp stove neded for dinner. She did well eating outside, staying away from the firepit, and just generally listening to what we told her to do and not do. Sleeping was uneventful, which was exactly what we wanted.
Saturday morning we woke up early and cooked breakfast. This time, we used our new camp stove to boil water and make coffee and oatmeal. Simple, quick, and a good breakfast. The French Press was a great thing to have for the coffee. John and Claire and thier kids joined us late morning, and we then had lunch. Lots of sausages were eaten over the weekend.
The rest of the day was spent walking around the park and relaxing. We checked out the information on boating, found a geocache, went over to the playground, and generally enjoyed being lazy at the campsite playing with fire. Sarah, Paige and Ben got along well for spending so much time in close proximity to each other. They are all young and all feed off of each others energy, so things get wild every now and then, but they were good.
The kids were exposed to may forms of nature over the weekend. We had a walking stick take up residence on our tent, as did many spiders, caterpillars and even a cricket. They kids all enjoyed just looking at the bugs and asking questions about them. Nothing too exciting like snakes or bears, but a good introduction beyond grass, trees, and lightning bugs.
Saturday night was a different story all together though. The kids all went to sleep by 9:30, which is exactly what we were hoping for. The four of us sat around the camp fire talking and cooking. We retired around 11 or so, only to be awoken at 3:00 by heavy rain, thunder and lightening. Sarah slept through the entire storm, which is surprising. John and Claire didn't have it so good. Their tent leaked, heavily, and they ended up laying in puddles in their tent. The decided around 4:00 that they were going to go home and finish sleeping there, for the kids sake, then come back in the morning and finish out the weekend with us.
Breakfast Sunday morning was good. It consisted of leftover potatoes and sausage cooked in a cast iron skillet, and pancakes on a cast iron griddle. We then packed up and headed out. A wonderful, very enjoyable weekend. We will be doing this again in the coming months. Probably only once more this year, since our weekends are booked in September and much past October it get's cold overnight. Not sure I want to expose Sarah to that yet.
Mommy- Sarah what do you see out your window
Sarah-Nudey corn
Mommy- (laughing) what makes the corn nudey
Sarah-it took its dress off...
*so all corn is now nudey corn unless its brown/ dry and that is just corn*
"I am getting a tattoo and you can't stop me....OK. you understand me"--Sarah
Really-Mommy
Yeah!! Silly mommy!!-Sarah
When you're 30 like mommy you can get one--Mommy
No-tonight--Sarah
Will a lollipop do?--Mommy
Sure!!-Sarah
*then she fell asleep*
In the car this morning Sarah asked me where Kayla and Auntie Jen were.
I told her that Auntie Jen was probably at work and she was lucky enough
to get to take Kayla with her to work. Then we went through the rest of
the family and where she thought they were or were going. The list is
as follows:
Daddy-work
Grampy-work
Grandma-playing with the cats
Uncle E-still in Cal*i*forn*ia, 'member
Mommy-gonna take a nap
and the best of all
Uncle Joey-he's goin' golfin'!!
For the past several weeks, Sarah has been waking up from her naps at school dry. Her teachers have been putting her on the potty, and she has been going. They have also been sitting her on the potty at various other times throughout the day, and the results have been mixed. Not bad for beginning at just 2 years old. We have also been doing the same, admittedly not as well as we could be.
Well, the tides have turned this morning. She woke up completely dry, so we sat her on the potty, and she went. Great!! The better part, once she got to school, she was telling Karen that she had to go to the potty, and went running back to her classroom. Again, she went! We're so proud of her!
We'll see how things go the rest of the day while she is playing and such, but this is definately a step in the right direction. Hopefully we will be out of diapers soon. The're expensive!
Yesterday, we went out to our local sporting goods store and bought a 6 person tent. We've been talking about introducing Sarah to camping, and this was the perfect weekend weather wise to do it. We found a great deal on a large tent, marked down 33%, plus we got sleeping bags for the two of us (Sarah got one as a birthday gift) for $10 a piece. We got out of there for less than $100.
Sarah was all excited about sleeping in the tent. On the way home from dinner though, she got a bit aprehensive about it. Once it was set up though, she was chomping at the bit to get out there and sleep in it. She was so excited that it took a while for her to finally calm down. She did really well. We'er going to have to do it again, building up to camping out at a camp ground.
I couldn't find a picture of the tent online, so I'll have to post on of my own. Eventually :)