Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Camping trip

Okay it's been a few weeks since I last blogged. I think about blogging. I even have funny stories in my head that I want to share but by the end of the day after I pulled out my last hair and got the kids to bed and the laundry done, the kitchen cleaned and the house back to normal I can't for the life of me remember what was so funny.

Matt and I love tent camping. We used to go all the time when we lived in Maine. We have really cool gear from L.L. Beans and awesome gadgets and stuff. We like to rough it to an extent. As long as there are bathrooms and showers withing 500 ft of me then that's all I need. Oh, and a cooler with lots of food and snacks. Flashlights are good too so I need those as well. Marshmallows and hot dogs. Lots of blankets and warm clothes and fire wood for the fire. Oh yeah those little metal sticks to use for roasting said marshmallows and hot dogs. And comfy chairs to sit in by the fire.  Oh wait, I need my Iphone, books, music, and air mattress. Okay, that's all I need, really. (I'm sure I'm forgetting something ;) ).

So we set off this weekend for our first camping trip with Joshua and Emily. We went last year but it was a disaster for several reasons so we'll call this our first official camping trip with the kids.

Here's how it went. We got to the camp site and Matt fixed up the camp while the kids played nicely together and we all sang Kumbaya by the campfire and roasted marshmallows and stayed clean. Nobody fought and everybody did exactly as they were supposed too. The kids sat at the picnic table entertaining themselves while me and Matt relaxed by the fire having nice conversations and listened to soft music and the sounds of nature all around us and we all just soaked it in. 8pm came and it was time to gather the munchkins for bed and they hopped happily to the tent and put on their pajamas and went right to sleep. Such angels. Matt and I sat by the fire and shared a romantic evening together. It was beautiful. We climbed into the tent after the fire went out and crawled into our snug sleeping bags and cozily slept until 7am the next morning. The best sleep evar.........okay....wait....who's writing this bullshit? Oh my bad....that's HOW I PICTURED IT IN MY HEAD BEFOREHAND. :)

The reality of the situation was we had a lot of fun but it was exhausting and a lot of work. The kids did fairly well although I thought I was going to strangle Matt every time he told them to stop doing something or not to get dirty. Hello, woods + kids = dirty....get over it sweety. 

Most of the evening was spent reminding the kids to stay away from the fire....joshua you're too close....emily what did we just say. The fire is hot get away. Sigh....repeat.  The kids were exhausted and went to sleep pretty easily on Friday night. Matt and I stayed up until about 10 and then crawled into the tent. The kids slept on pallets on either side of our air mattress. Hey they are little they can rough it ;). Matt and I have really really nice sleeping bags that are rated for -15 degrees. I have come to a realization (although matt says he was quite comfortable and even sweaty at times during the night) that these temp ratings only mean that if it is cold out and above -15 you won't die, you may still be cold, it's not gonna feel like you're sitting by a fire but hey you're not gonna die of a little cold right. Ugh. So the whole night I was freezing.  I was all cocooned in my mummy bag and shivered most of the night. I was worried about the kids although they had lots of blankets and stuff on them and Joshua slept like a log. Emily got up at some point during hte night and snuggled into daddy's sleeping bag which was all nice and toasty. (note to self-lose weight so I can fit into Matt's sleeping bag too for next trip).  I woke up every hour counting down to the time the sun would rise again.

The problem with me and being cold through the night is it makes me have to pee. Right here Right now I will tell you at 2 am in 40 degree weather I was praying really hard for a penis. Men are so freaking lucky.  I held off for as long as I could and around 2:30am I couldn't hold it anymore and had to get out of the tent and walk the 500 feet (felt like a mile but it wasn't too far up the road) to the bathrooms.  I stumbled through the darkness to the restrooms and walked in. OOOOOOOHHHH....the bathrooms are heated.....the thoughts that ran through my head at that moment. How wrong would it be to grab my sleeping bag and camp out in here......okay gross but the thought did cross my mind ;). Like I said it was freaking cold. I do my business and sit there for a few minutes thinking about the cold walk back and reminding myself that no you can't stay here all night. I get back to the tent and suffer through the next few hours. Finally, it's time to get up. We survived the first night. I thought for sure we'd give up and pack up a few hours later and leave but nope we persevered.

Saturday was a great day. It was absolutely beautiful out. The reason we planned our trip this weekend was to coincide with an event held at Camp Royall, a campground owned by the Autism Society of North Carolina. They were having a family fun day for families who have kids on the spectrum. They had a bbq, open gymnasium with all kinds of games and activities, an art center, a zip line for the kids, hayrides, and more. Can I just say right now that I think the NC Autism Society is awesome and do a fantastic job supporting families in the area. They host summer camps at Camp Royall every year for kids on the spectrum. It is expensive but it's 5 nights with a 1:1, 1:2 ratio for the campers and although Joshua actually is old enough this year, he's still too young in my eyes to send him off overnight for a week although tempting. So now I day dream of the day when that will happen, plus I need to start my piggy bank fund so I can afford to send him there. He had so much fun doing the games. The zip line was awesome and both Emily and Joshua rode on that. The only part he hated was when we went to the campfire sing along. He doesn't like singing songs. Oh well. They are hosting it again next month so we are going to do this whole camping experience over again.

That afternoon we headed back to our camp site and got the kids in their swim suits and headed to the beach. The weather was perfect. The kids had fun and loved it. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and hung out around the campfire and it was nice. That night I stayed a bit warmer and I had matt help me really cocoon myself in my sleeping bag and cinch (is that a word) the head part and zip it as high as it went. I was completely buried inside the sleeping bag. I even lasted until about 4:30am before I had to pee and the only problem was I couldn't get out of the bag. I was in there really good. Finally after wrestling with it and flopping around like a fish out of water I was able to get out. Although I stayed warmer that night I was happy when Matt got out of bed first with Emily and started a fire. By the time I got out of the tent Matt had a wonderful fire going. :) I sat by the fire until about 10am before I was warm enough to move around to help pack up camp. Matt got motivated to pack up around the same time but his motivation was his Iphone battery died. Guess that signaled the end of our camping trip. ;).

We had a good time and lots of good memories and we are crazy enough that we are going to go back next month and do it over again. 

1 comment:

  1. The key to being warm in a sleeping bag is being warm before you climb in. I am never warm and so I always end up insulating in the cold with me. No fun. That NC Autism Society event sounds awesome!!! Katie is actually going to a day camp this summer that is 1:2 ratio. I can't wait!

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