A Try at Camping

Last night we "camped" as family.

In my parents front yard.

And we still had to come inside!

What an adventure with a 3 year old. We had gotten Lucy a purple tent at a yard sale awhile back and finally had a night that we could try it out for an all-nighter. Lucy and I picked up Chris from the dance studio at about 7pm last night and then headed out to my parents house. They live on 20 acres, so it actually is good practice camping.

After pitching the tents, Lucy and I started dinner while Chris finished setting up the bedding in the tents. My dad had the remainder of the fire from burning tree trimmings. Lucy was excited to cook hot dogs and marshmallows, until she got close to the fire. She hid behind me to avoid the heat and said that her face was burning!

After dinner and marshmallows (which Lucy informed me that we were not going to roast them, but cook them over a fire) and chatting with my parents, it was finally time for bed. That was about 10:30pm. Lucy stayed in her tent for about an hour, playing with a flashlight from Grandpa and then joined me in my tent. Chris avoided the whole thing by being on the computer checking out motorcycle helmets (soon-to-be post concerning that!). After another hour of dealing with Lucy all over me and battling the onset of a cold, we came inside for potty breaks and for me to seek relief from Chris.

We stayed up a little bit and all three of us headed back out to the campsite. At 3:30 am, it started to rain. Our tent is not a good quality tent; the rain fly does nothing. Lucy's tent had no rain fly. Lucy had been asleep, and then all of a sudden was "on," and in quite a little panic to get out of the rain. Fortunately, I had slept enough for it to be funny, instead of irritating.

Into the house we went! After settling in, Lucy went out cold with Chris on the floor and I slept on the couch. I don't like being sick, but I do enjoy little the spoils you can get when you are. Sleeping on the couch was wonderful, all except for the dream about Chris taking part in a conspiracy to blackmail me. I was so glad that he woke me up out of that one!

I don't know if we'll camp out again tonight, though we are still at my parents' house. They have gone out of town until Saturday evening, and we are house-sitting/Blueberry-sitting. They have a blueberry patch and it's picking season right now. Normally, they don't worry about us house-sitting, but with a U-pick, someone needs to be here to collect money from the pickers. And I can use the internet. Nice arrangement.