Saturday, August 15, 2009

First Time Campers!

We just had a great camping trip weekend. Last year, we couldn't seem to time it right with the rain and Chris's vacation to go camping, so we only ended up setting up our tent in our backyard and Samuel and I slept it in for one night. That was NOT camping (yes, we had to explain that this was actually Samuel's first time camping, although he has slept in the tent before).

Yesterday we packed our gear (which is amazingly a lot for only one night!) and headed out to this serene, beautiful lake just outside of Gothenburg called Härskogen. It was so peaceful. The lake is surrounded by tall pines with random summer cabins spread throughout the forest. (Chris's parents had a cabin there a couple years ago, but have sold it).

We got there yesterday evening (after eating dinner at home), got the tent set up and got a fire started. I over-excitedly, wanted to introduce my children to s'mores, so we found sticks, roasted the mallows, put the chocolate on top, put it all on the grahm cracker, and lo and behold, my children did NOT like them, to my udder disappointment. Maybe they're just neat-freaks, but they kept complaining how sticky and messy they were and hard to eat and after one each, they quickly declined another and went straight for the marshmallows. :( (maybe next year!).

After our s'mores, we went down to the lake to wash our hands and face and brush our teeth and climbed into bed. We sat up and read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" for awhile, sang a couple songs and by 10:00, all 3 kids were zonked out (to our surprise). We strolled the stroller under the canopy of the tent and Emmy slept perfectly all suggled up inside all night. Even though the kids slept great, it took Chris and I ages to fall asleep and it seemed as soon as we dozed off ourselves, Samuel was waking us up bright and early and ready for the day.

Chris took Samuel out on a little morning stroll while the girls slept a bit longer We spent the morning at the lake and rented a canoe to paddle around. Samuel was the only one brave enough to actually go swimming (it was quite cold). The clouds were pretty thick and getting darker as the day went on, so we decided to skip our hot-dogs-over-the-fire lunch and just eat back at home. Good idea, since it started pouring on the way home.

Anyway, the kids LOVED it and Chris and I LOVED it! It brought back so many memories of my family's camping trips every summer. This is definitely a tradition we'll continue.

1 comment:

Alyce said...

What fun! Campouts are great memory makers!