Kamping with Kids

If you have ever gone camping, you know there are moments of bliss usually followed by moments of torment. I say this because Matt and I have gone camping before we had children and now that we have children, the theory still holds true in a whole new light! Needless to say, we took our first camping adventure to Wells, ME this past week. We only stayed for one night because we really wanted to discover how well prepared we were for camping with two kids; we also wanted to make sure that we started small to work toward success. We hope to gradually increase our length of stay as we become more confident that all will be well.

This blog entry will perhaps we a bit different than the earlier ones. I fear that I have portrayed all our adventures in a very idealistic fashion; it certainly has not been my intention to paint our family or our adventures as a family as perfect. Our days, nights, and certainly our adventures are filled with frustration, screaming and crying, and overwhelm. SO, for this entry I have decided to include all the parts of our camping trip that I guess we would have liked to omit or edit if we were making a film! However, I will include some pictures that capture the moments of bliss for us all!

Outtake #1: We packed enough food for all meals except dinner. Although we were planning on making a trip to the grocery store to get some provisions to make dinner on our camp stove, we gave up. We decided to go to a restaurant. First, we had to wait 20 minutes for a table. Colin only wanted to play in the waterfall, and Ella and I spent most of our time waiting in the bathroom. Ella stood in one of the stalls while I dried her underwear and pants out with the hand dryer (accident). We finally did get a table. While Ella took only two bites of pasta, Colin inhaled a hot dog and some fries while Matt and I had a cocktail and a salad. Things quickly went downhill when Ella started crying to go home, and then Colin started crying at the top of his lungs. We quickly requested to have our meals packed up and exited the restaurant before people started throwing rotten tomatoes at us.

Outtake #2: Colin and Ella refused to take their shoes off each time they entered the tent (our sleeping bags were right by the door). Finally, Matt told the kids to just run around the campsite with socks on. Of course, Ella and Colin did not pick up on the sarcasm in Matt's voice, so they pushed their shoes aside and enjoyed turning white socks into black socks.

Outtake #3: I put pajamas on Ella and Colin before toasting marshmallows - big mistake. Colin was so exhausted he couldn't walk so he tripped in the dirt. Ella fell and then wiped her hands on her pajamas. Oh well . . .

Outtake #4: Ella woke up at 3 AM proclaiming she had to go to the bathroom. Ella and I got our shoes on, headed to the woods, only to discover she really didn't have to go after all.

Outtake #5: No matter how hard one tries, ocean sand never really ever comes clean from little hands. Even if hands do come clean, the sand is so tempting to touch. We were eating lunch when Colin decided to grab some sand and then grab a cucumber out of the container of vegetables. Blowing on the vegetables and even shaking the vegetables off did not recover them. We were crunching sand with our subsequent bites of the vegetables for the rest of the trip.

Ella and Colin couldn't wait to get into the tent.

One of the highlights of the trip for Ella was toasting marshmallows. She couldn't wait to get into her sleeping bag. In fact, she asked to go to bed! When will that ever happen again?

Matt made us pancake and sausages for breakfast - good!

On a very bright side, we had amazing weather both days. We enjoyed the beach both days that we were in Maine, and Ella and Colin were able to run around on the sand and chase seagulls. Overall, Matt and I decided that we would certainly return for another camping trip. We did make a list of things we needed to add to our camping supplies, and we brainstormed plenty of dinner ideas to avoid any more restaurant catastrophes! The highlight for the both of us was when Ella was toasting marshmallows Tuesday night and turned to say, "I love camping, and this is so much fun." She then came over and kissed and hugged us both. The hours of packing and organizing were all worth it with that one sentence!