Ben and I went to a matinee showing of Les Mis. Of course, how can that not be wonderful? We took the light rail downtown and had a great time. They changed the show a little bit for those of you who have seen it before. They no longer have the rotating stage. Instead, they took some of Victor Hugo's paintings and used those to create a new stage setting. It was pretty neat, but I did like the rotating stage, too. I guess either way you can't go wrong.
Then we rushed home to go on our first family camping experience. This is something we were not looking forward to. In fact, yesterday morning Ben told me he and Claire would just stay home. I told him he at least had to go up at night to help me set up the tent and come back on Saturday to help take it down, but if he wanted to go home to sleep he could. After all, if Claire was at home sleeping than I knew we would all get a better night's sleep. Audra had been begging to go camping for sometime and experience this crazy thing known as sleeping in a tent, though, so there was no backing out for me.
In the end, he and Claire ended up staying. We brought a playpen thinking Claire might sleep in that because she did when we went to Leavenworth in August. Last night, though, she refused. She finally fell asleep (around 11) half in my sleeping bag and half out. Audra fell asleep slightly before that. It took her awhile, though, because she "couldn't close her eyes" and she "wanted mommy to help her." That did pose an interesting problem.
It was a church camping trip, so there were LOTS of little kids for the girls to play with, and there really was no way for the girls to get into too much trouble which was impressive and nice. In the morning the men from church made us breakfast which was nice. Then we hung out while the kids ran around, and then Ben and I played some volleyball, which was a lot of fun. We may need to play some more volleyball.
On the way home, Ben said "Well, that was fun!" and I looked at him- shocked- and said "Can you say that again?" Ben is not known for his wild camping adventures, because he has none. He refused to say it once more, but I am now recording it for posterity's sake.
Here is what we decided:
Camping is fun for ONE night ONCE a year. That's it. I don't think we want to do it anymore than that.
We asked Audra is she liked it and she said it was a lot of fun and that her favorite part was "setting up the tent." I found that a little funny since she didn't help with setting up the tent, but the girls really did think the tent was great (last night Audra kept crying and saying that she never wanted to go home and wanted to live in the tent forever. Ughhh....NOT going to happen, sweetheart!)
We then asked Claire if she had fun and she immediately replied "nope." Can't please everyone, I guess.
This is the part I hate most of camping: Unpacking! It just takes SO MUCH work to camp- which is why once a year is about all I want to do!
4 comments:
Way to bite the bullet and do something you don't like for Audra! I also don't like camping mainly because of how much work it is. Yuck! Luckily, Alan does like it and is pretty good at it so he can take Spencer and go all they want.
Yah, we don't camp either. One time I suggested we should take the kids camping and Jason just looked at me with great alarm and said, "why?" Of course, we don't own any gear - not even sleeping bags, so it would be a big deal if we decided to go...glad you all survived. :)
hooooo boy. I've been avoiding that first family camping trip for a long time but I know it's inevitable. I just have to have faith that EVENTUALLY, the kids will fall asleep. Sounds like it turned out pretty well! Funny post too!
Ha! I think camping in the backyard is enough for me!
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