camping... kinda

We had a week full of fun. Here's installment #1.

On Monday night we took June on her first camping trip... to our backyard. We were planning on taking her to a local wilderness area, but we got cold feet. It would have required a mile and a half hike to the campsite, and we had no idea how she'd react to sleeping in a tent; the idea of hiking with a screaming toddler for a mile and half in the middle of the night back to our car made our decision easy.

Here's Junie stabbing at the smoke with her skewer. If you squint your eyes you can see our happy little two-person tent in the background.

We're not ready for one of those monster 3000 square foot tents, but the three- or four-person variety probably would have worked better. We were quite cozy.

Here's June enjoying some grapes around the campfire. For dinner, we enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches and canned baked beans prepared pseudo-outdoorsily: on a gas grill.

It was always such a thrill to play with glow sticks when I was little, so I picked up a few at Home Depot earlier in the afternoon. Like a lot of things, e.g., building forts, Matchbox cars, I purchased them for her, but they were every bit as entertaining for me. We played catch, spun 'em around, and threw 'em high in the air. Good, cheap fun.

Given that it was our own backyard, some of our activities were decidedly un-outdoorsy...

June loved the campfire, her headlamp, the glow sticks, and playing around in the dark. She wasn't too fond of the tent, especially having it zipped closed-- she just wouldn't have it. It took her awhile to get to sleep, and an hour or two later, Adrienne and I joined her in the tent. We slept rather comfortably until, at 2:30 am, June woke up and seemed totally wired-- perhaps weirded out to find her parents sleeping next to her. Our efforts to coax her back to sleep proved futile, so we headed in for the night. She immediately fell asleep in her crib. Overall, it was a fun night and good first step towards more outdoor adventures. With one or two more backyard test-runs, she'll be ready for the real thing.