First Family Camping Trip

Lets set the scene, we have a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 month old. We want to go do things, but with a new baby it is a little hard. But Kevin and I think to ourselves, "if we always are waiting until the baby is older, then Camille and Jason are not going to have any memories at this age." So off we go camping with a 1 month old. We want our kids to have so many good memories of being with family, and we love camping and want to share it with our kids. I just hope our kids know how much we love them.

A couple months ago Kevin went on a motorbike ride up in the mountains by Huntsville and he thought it was so beautiful and wanted to go camping. There is a campground there called Monte Cristo. So we went there and it was perfect.

Kevin got home from work around 3 o'clock and we started packing the truck. Our truck is older, and we haven't put 3 car seats in it before, so it took some jimmy rigging the car seats a little bit but we finally got them in. Getting them in took forever. We ended up leaving our house at 5. We usually eat dinner at 6, but the drive up to Monte Cristo took a little over an hour. So we got there around 6 ish, but still needed to make dinner and set up the tent and everything before it got dark. So we split up and I started cutting up potatoes and Kevin set up the tent, then we switched and Kevin started the Charcoal for the dutch oven and I started setting up sleeping bags. We finally got everything set up and dinner ready. We made potato, bacon, and onion casserole(?) in the dutch oven. I am not exactly sure what you would call it, but it is delicious. We love it.

While we were doing all of the above, Camille and Jason "painted wood" with dirt and played in the dirt. I have never seen them so dirty. It made them so happy. Our campsite was close to the bathrooms, which doesn't seem like a detail I should include in this story, but when you have a 4 year old it is really important. Camille was able to go by herself and she had to climb over a fallen tree and I am sure that she thought she was the coolest 4 year old in the world.

If you look in the background you can see the bathrooms. Isn't that perfect for a 4 year old?

We let the kids stay up a little later and roast marshmallows. Jason didn't actually love eating them, but he LOVED roasting the marshmallows. So we let him roast (burn) several marshmallows. He thought it was the best thing ever.

Sadie was awesome while we were setting everything up. She hung out in her bouncer for the most part and then later during the night we held her. We finally got Jason and Camille to sleep which is amazing because I forgot to give Jason his pacifier. It was the first night he fell asleep without his pacifier. It gave me hope to take his pacifier away. We eventually gave it to him because he was struggling a little bit to stay asleep, but it was a success that he actually fell asleep without it.

Kevin had made this awesome thing that goes over the fire so we can cook on it and warm up water, and so we warmed up some water and made some hot chocolate and sat by the fire. It was such a nice hour to sit and relax and drink hot chocolate with my love.

That night Sadie slept so awesome. We put her in a little snowsuit to keep her warm and she slept so great. In fact one time when Jason woke up I leaned over to see if she was still alive because she was sleeping so good. Jason on the other hand did not sleep so well. We got these new kid sized air mattresses for the kids, and Jason just could not stay on it. I think next time we go camping we will just leave the air mattresses at home.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast (which the kids didn't like) and started packing up camp. When we got the last thing packed up into the truck it started raining pretty hard. It was perfect timing.

It was so nice to go camping, but being the adult is hard. Having to set up camp and do all the cooking and all the grown up stuff. It was a lot of work, but so worth it because Camille and Jason made some good memories and we got to spend some good quality time together as a family.

We hope to get some more camping in this year, and every year after this. And we hope to make many more wonderful memories with our family.