Our first night camping

Here is the series of posts containing some notes and photos from our camping excursion last week.

The travel to the park went fairly well.  We loaded up and left soon after everyone awoke on Tuesday morning.  All the boys slept for the first half of the trip.  Jude tolerated the car until the last 30 miles and then he protested loudly.  

 

We made it safely to our yurt at the state park around dinnertime.  It was way nicer than I thought!  Both the yurt and the gazebo were up on decking.  We had both a charcoal stove and a fire pit for cooking outside. The inside included two sets of bunk beds, a sink, a mini-fridge, a fan, a heater, and a 2-burner gas stove, and a good amount of room to move around.  There were even dishtowels and sheets for the beds...nearly a hotel room with all the amenities!  However, the bathrooms were about 50yards away and the showers were twice that distance.  The entire yurt structure sat between the only other two yurts and was in the Northwest corner of the park, which meant there was no one behind us camping.

We quickly unloaded the car of our bags.  I set about unpacking and setting up the beds while Brian saw to dinner.  Tamlin saw the bunk beds and immediately claimed a top bunk.  He was able to nimbly climb up to the bed, but wasn't quite as sure footed for coming back downward.  We let Jude roam around the structure like a little puppy exploring his new home.  He was quite unsure about the board planking at first; I bet it felt a bit weird on his knees. 

 After dinner, we got Jude to bed in his portable crib.  He was a pretty tired little boy after the day-long journey eastward.  We let Tamlin stay up later because he was so excited to be camping for the first time. 

I enjoyed just sitting down and watching the sun set.  Very peaceful.

Brian got the fire started, with help from Tamlin.  He was really good at trying to blow on the fire with both air and lots of spit.  The night was warm, so we didn't need the fire for the heat, but for ...

Marshmallows!

Yummy, sugary, gooey, goodness!



 Tam's first just jammed a marshmallow on the stick and ate it.  I then showed him that we stick the marshmallow in the fire to toast it (or burn it a bit) before we chomp it.

 Tam tried this newfangled treat.  After lighting a marshmallow on fire, blowing it out, and tasting it, Tam declared that he only liked white marshmallows and not black ones.
More for me.

(Wow, you can really see how dirty my kid got after only a few hours camping.)

Both boys slept pretty well the first night.  Jude had a few qualms because he was teething and still ornery.  He woke up howling toward morning because he got a little too chilly.  Brian brought our little Jude Popsicle into bed with us for the morning hours.  Tam was convinced that a bear was going to come into the tent, but he thought that would be okay.  (This is in reference to a page in the book "Hop on Pop", by Dr. Seuss..."He [A bear] went into the tent.  I sent him out of the tent."  He did decide to bring Gloria the Hippo to help with any bear troubles.

I love this picture of Jude sleeping surrounded by love...

sleeping with home-made blankets and monster.