First Camping Trip

This past weekend we took Ally on her very first camping trip. In the end its hard to call it an actual trip - it was just 1 night at a state campground about 90 minutes away. But it was fun.

To get ready for the trip we set the tent up in our living room before we left. We wanted to make sure all the parts were there (its been over 3 years since we went camping) and that we remembered how to put the tent up.

Then of course we set up Ally's sleeping bag in the tent in the hope that she would feel more comfortable for the real set up in the woods.

Here is our campsite - that is the lake through the trees.

Waiting for dinner to be served.

Games during dinner - Ally enjoyed playing peek a boo at the tent. She is so silly sometimes!

After dinner it was time to roast marshmallows. Can you tell how safety conscious Ally is? She can't even reach the fire pit.

So Becky tried to show her that the marshmallow was not getting hot.

Finally with Becky holding on to the stick too Ally agreed to put the marshmallow in the fire to roast.

But that did not last long - after about 15 seconds Ally pushed her chair way back from the fire and left Becky to taste the marshmallow all by herself. Frankly I thought the whole thing was hilarious - Ally has always been super safety conscious. We've never completely child-proofed our house. It was just not necessary, she points out when an outlet cover is missing and if we leave out scissors or a knife she says something like "uh oh...we should put that away".
Well she has to also be the most fire-safety child on the planet. The whole time the fire was going she kept saying we needed to "pour water on it" to put it out. She also would not get close at all.

Her she is after she ate her 4th and final marshmallow of the day. I should also note that Ally refused to eat or even take a bit of a smore and was not even interested in the chocolate bar - all she wanted was plain marshmallows.

After dessert it was time for popcorn over the fire!

It was taking a long time so Becky took over from Ally.

Ally waited

and waited

and waited

but there was no corn popping until I took over! The key is to get the basket closer to the heat source.

because very quickly popcorn fills the basket!

After popcorn it was time to go to sleep.

If only getting Ally to sleep in the tent was as easy as getting the popcorn to pop. We were all in our sleeping bags ready for sleep at about 8:45PM. Unfortunately sleep did happen until 12:00AM. There was a trip to the bathroom, a night-time banana snack, books read to Ally, Ally reading books to herself (pictured above), stories told by mama (that were so boring they almost put mommy to sleep), songs sung, flashlights played with, and numerous fits of "where is Ariel" (Ally has a small 4" Little Mermaid doll that she insisted on bringing with her and Kitty and Ernie but the small figurine kept getting lost between all of the sleeping bags and pillows) and eventually crying "I want to get out of the tent...I can't go to sleep in here" Becky tried to reason with her and explain that it was dark and tent would not fit in the car... it was adorable but finally I cuddled Ally close and she fell asleep in my arms, sharing my sleeping bag. I woke up a few times all stiff from sleeping with Ally and every time I moved she would cry. I was awake for good at 530AM and around 630 got up for a bathroom break, which of course woke up Ally for good as well.

Here is Ally in the morning. She was not in a good place. She said she was ready to go home. We said "we'll go home in a while" and she said a while was too long.

And really - how much did I want to battle with Ally to stay longer - we were getting eaten by mosquitoes, it was cold and I was tired. So we agreed to pack up and go home.

And boy was Ally happy to leave soon.

In the end Becky and I think our mistake was in doing all of our camping stuff on the first night. In the morning Ally felt we were all done camping, she was tired and cold and wanted to go home. We've already planned a 2nd trip, this time with Alice and her parents, and we're going to leave Saturday morning and plan on spending only 1 night again but we'll plan more activities for the day.
We did have a great time, while it lasted. And I am actually looking forward to the next time.