Our site was adjacent to Grayson's family's site, so we set up our tent while the kids ran around. Then we went for a little hike on the trail near the campground. Alice and Grayson ran most of the time.
Simon, on the other hand, required being carried for a lot of the hike. We'd tried to give the kids a good snack before we left home so they would have plenty of energy, but they had both refused to eat.
So, we soon stopped for a snack on a log.
On the way back, Simon started to get more into the hiking aspect of the hike.
Back at the campsite, it was time to get the fire ready so we could cook dinner.
Simon was taking it all in from his little camp chair. He would occasionally get up and test how close we'd let him get to the fire, but for the most part he understood that the fire was hot and he shouldn't get close.
Alice learned how to cook a sausage over a fire.
The kids were so cute eating their supper together!
After the sausages and hotdogs were consumed, we started roasting the marshmallows.
After supper, the kids had some time to play, and we weren't in a hurry for bedtime--since we wanted them to be as worn out as possible.
Simon mostly drove his plastic car back and forth on the van bumper, while Grayson and Alice turned our gravel tent pad into a sandbox.
The kids were having a blast. We play outside so often that the kids felt right at home. The one exception was that Simon would squeal in terror every time a gnat or fly would orbit his head. This was surprising because we go outdoors a lot and even host a healthy supply of fruit flies in our own home.
Once it finally got dark, I caught two fireflies for Alice and put them in her little bug cage. She named the first one Hamburger and the second one Sera. We'd also brought the bug net, but the kids weren't having much luck catching the lightning bugs with it. At some point, Grayson put the net on one of the citronella candles and burnt a hole in it. But then a few minutes later he managed to catch a firefly with it. Alice named that one Grayson.
We'd also brought glow sticks and plenty of flashlights for the kids, so they ran around with those for a while, always coveting the color another child had. The nice thing about having the two campsites right next to each other was they formed a natural boundary and the kids could run between them, usually not venturing to the far side of the tents. Simon tried to wander off to a nearby camper's tent a few times, but for the most part he stayed close too.
After some yogurt for a bedtime snack and some picnic-table toothbrushing, we went to our tent to begin the dreaded night. It was about 9:30 or 10:00 by then, so the kids were sufficiently tired, but not completely bonkers. Zac had already completed his ablutions for the evening, so he went in the tent with the kids while I went to the restroom to wash my face and clean my teeth. Simon was very upset about my leaving, but Zac read him some books in the tent while Alice decorated it with glow sticks.
When I came back, Alice was in her pajamas, but the rest of the bedding still needed arranged and Simon needed jammied. Our plan was to have Alice sleep on my yoga mat covered with a fitted sheet, with her blanket and night paraphernalia from home, to make it as normal as possible. She would sleep on the far side of the tent, then Zac and I on our mats, with the double sleeping bag (two bags zipped together), and Simon at our heads on a fluffly blanket.
There were two hiccups in this plan. One: We'd forgotten that at some point we had taken one of the sleeping bags out of the bag, so in reality, we only had one sleeping bag. Two: Simon refused to sleep in his assigned spot and insisted on sleeping on me. Every time I would roll over or try to get him to sleep snuggled up beside me, he would climb back on. Like a persistent turtle on a rolling log, it didn't matter if I laid on my back, tummy, or side: he would climb back on.
It was annoying at the time, but I suppose it totally makes sense in terms of survival: When young and succulent and sleeping in a forest, cling tightly to mommy.
Alice, meanwhile, was doing quite well in her designated sleeping area. The only problem was she asked what every single noise was. Finally, I decided to get out in front of it, and just list, monotonously and soothingly, the source of every possible sound she might hear while sleeping in a wooded campground near an airport. I think it eased her anxiety and put her to sleep.
My little turtle finally exhausted himself and submitted to sleeping next to me, in the place between Zac and I. We probably finally fell asleep around 11:00pm. But we both slept lightly and woke up a lot.
Simon woke up right at 6:00am when the planes at the nearby airport started taking off. He wandered around the tent and kept telling me to get up. Zac and Alice managed to sleep in a bit longer.
I was glad Alice slept in, because I knew once she was up, she would want to go wake up Grayson, and then together they would wake up the whole campground. Fortunately, they both seemed to be up at the same time, around 7am. Alice looked out our tent window and there was Grayson greeting the morning from his tent without any pants on. They shouted "Hi" at each other and were so happy to see each other again in the morning.
Soon, we were all dressed and bustling around the campsite to get the fire going and prepare coffee, eggs, bacon, and English muffins.
Lindsey has chickens, and so I had told Alice that Lindsey was going to bring fresh eggs for us to have for breakfast. Even though Alice had seen us make eggs a home a gazillion times, she was still convinced she was going to cook her egg on a stick over the fire, the same way she had cooked sausages and marshmallows the night before. I'm not sure she really thought through the logistics of that endeavor, because she seemed rather disappointed that we were going to cook them in a cast-iron skillet.
Lindsey also brought donuts, and we were all starving enough to essentially have a dessert of donuts right after breakfast. Food just tastes better when camping, and drinking the French-pressed coffee with a donut seemed like the best thing ever. Alice also enjoyed her donut.
Alice thought the bathrooms were stinky, so this is how she walked to the restroom: holding her nose and holding her tinkle. Because she takes things literally.
And no camping trip would be complete without playing in the fire with sticks.
Which was fine, until Simon decided that he also needed to put a stick in the fire.
I had to take Simon away from the campsite for a while to play in the woods because he was crying because he wanted to play in the fire so much. Luckily, we found a log in the woods and that seemed to keep him distracted.
While we cleaned up and packed up, the kids played around the campsite some more. Then Grayson and Alice had another snack.
After that, Grayson and his family left to go home, but we decided to take another little hike, since we were already dirty and at a forest.
We found a little creek at the bottom of a hill, but the water was not clean enough to play in and we didn't feel like letting the kids get all wet.
The kids seemed to be pretty worn out, so we soon headed back up to the van.
They both fell asleep within a few minutes. They were tuckered out little campers!
When we got home, Alice said, "I want to go camping every Saturday!" We told her we'd go camping again, but probably not every Saturday.
