Camping

Clearly not my idea. Mike insisted it would be good to get out of the house for the weekend. You know those recipes that are supposed to take 5min, but the prep ends up taking 45min so by the time you're actually cooking it you've invested an hour. That's how camping is. The preparation takes much longer than the experience (and the clean up).

Mistake number one was that I grabbed what looked like "a big stack of diapers." Really I should have done the math (8-10 diapers a day x 2.5 days) or just brought an entire pack. Because we ran out on the last day. Which really sucked because I had two huge boxes of them at home (that I bought with a coupon) and we were really only 2-3 short. Mistake number two I brought two pairs of jammies for the two days. What was I thinking? A trip "into town" solved those issues (thanks small town WinDixie with reasonable prices and Bealls outlet).

As far as the actual camping part the much debated baby paraphernalia was the most useful. We set the Pack and Play up outside our tent. We made sure she had a great view of the river and covered it with a blanket to keep anything from blowing in. We also made regular use of the Bumbo. Riley loved camping. She laughed at the bird sounds and was fascinated by the trees and the camp fire. As Mike put it "it [was] the most outside she's ever been."

It was beautiful and some parts of it were relaxing. A long car trip with a baby who eats every two hours, breastfeeding in a dark tent with no back support and not being able get around very well sucked. But I'm glad we went. I survived a 3hr car ride, sleeping in a tent during cool nights, the uneven terrain of the woods, port-a-potties, a dip in the freezing spring and being dirty for days. Woohoo.

I look forward to the baptism trip in warmer weather and to sending the boys camping by themselves in the foreseeable future.