When Alice greeted me on Saturday morning, she gave me a little hug and the first thing she said was "Happy camping day, Mommy!" I love this girl so much.
I'd told David, a friend from work, about our first camping trip with the kids, and he'd recommended this specific site (#123) at the Falls Lake campground because it had its own beach. I'd gone home and reserved the site that very night, for mid-July. So here we were, on this warm July evening, standing on our own private beach, at least for a day.
After checking out the beach, we went back up to set up the tent, in case it rained. A large thunderstorm had come through earlier in the afternoon, but there was a chance of more. The kids did a fairly good job of entertaining themselves while we got ready.
Then, as soon as we had a tent to change in, we donned our suits and went swimming. The water was nice and warm, the lake was shallow, and had a nice sandy bottom. It was great. There was a boat launch nearby, so there were frequent jet skis and speedboats going by, making waves.
Soon, we were joined by Grayson's family. They weren't going to spend the night, due to the heat, but thought it would be fun to come by and let the kids swim together and have a cookout.
After swimming for a while, we came up for supper. Alice gave Grayson the "letter" she made for him: a colorfully scribbled page from her dinosaur coloring book.
Simon was happy to play with Grayson's yellow dump truck. Even though we have one at home (which we didn't bring) Simon was enamored. The next day, he kept asking, "Where yellow dump truck go?"
The kids enjoyed their sausages. Nothing like swimming and being outdoors to help one work up an appetite.
Then it was time for marshmallows. The kids don't really eat them, but Alice enjoys cooking them. Zac enjoys eating them.
Somewhere in the process of cooking the sausages and marshmallows, Simon got too close to the fire and actually put his hand on the fire-ring. Zac yanked him back immediately, but Simon burnt one finger. Although we'd been telling him all along that the fire was hot, he really believed it after burning his hand. The rest of the evening, he steered clear, and kept repeating, with deep conviction, "Fire...hot!"
Grayson and his parents left around 7:30, so we let Alice ride her bike for a while, just to get her fully worn out. She had so much fun going back and forth on the campground road. Simon rode his big wheel for a bit, then resorted to running back and forth between me and Zac.
Finally, we went back down to the beach for some wading before bed.
To keep Alice from whacking people with her stick, Zac suggested she go write her name in the sand. To our surprise, she did, albeit with an upside down A and a backwards C.
After brushing our teeth at the picnic table, Alice and I walked up to the bathroom while Zac got Simon changed into his pajamas. The shortcut to the bathroom involved going through a "forest tunnel" in the dark, and Alice, armed with a flashlight, two glow sticks and her mother's hand, was very brave and had no qualms. Had we encountered a rogue spiderweb, this story would end differently, but as it was, our trip to the bathroom and back was uneventful.
One of the best, and most amazing things, about this campground was its complete lack of mosquitoes. At night, we saw a lot of bats flying around, so we attributed the pest control to them.
Back at the camp, I got in the tent with the kids, while Zac went to the restroom and got ready for bed. For this trip, we had borrowed our friend Kate's much larger tent, since we were quite squeezed last time. The kids took advantage of the extra space by going absolutely bonkers. They chased each other around the tent, diving onto the sleeping mats. It was a miracle they never clunked heads.
When Zac came in, I'd hoped the kids had expelled their last bit of energy, so I read them a few books as the last part of the bedtime routine.
This worked for Alice, and she was ready to settle down, but Simon refused to lay down, and instead wandered around the tent body-slamming people. He was obviously beyond tired, as it was nearly 10:30pm, but he just couldn't calm down. The rest of us laid still, and I kept repeating, "Lay down. It's time for bed. Go night-night." After a half-hour of aerial attacks from Simon, he finally collapsed in the corner of the tent. I'd brought a little blanket for him to sleep on, but even in his sleep, he couldn't remain stationary, and he basically ended up just sleeping on the floor of the tent. Next time I will bring a large blanket so that even when he rolls all around, he can at least be on a blanket.
These are photos of how I found the kids sleeping at 6am, when I woke up because the speedboats started blasting off from the boat ramp. So much for Alice's new sleeping bag!
We finally got up around 7:30 am. The kids played in the gravel while we got breakfast ready.
We had eggs and bananas for breakfast, just using our campstove rather than make a new fire.
Then we went swimming again, because that's what you do when you have a personal beach and a little girl who loves to swim.
The kids were pretty hungry, so we soon came back up for "second breakfast."
After that, Alice was pretty tired, so she wanted to change back into her clothes and ride her bike rather than swim more. While Zac packed up the tent, I went back out on the road with the kids so they could ride their bikes. We had a final snack of gummies, then headed home.
Our poor babes were once again so tired they fell right to sleep on the drive home.
Later, Alice once again declared that she wanted to go camping every weekend. I'm so glad she likes camping; I would be so disappointed if it were otherwise.
The rest of the day, and on into the week, every time Simon looked at the blister on his finger, he would say, "I play in the fire, Mommy! Fire is hot!" He would do this dozens of times each day. I would mark this as the first event he has talked about repeatedly after the fact. This is partly due to the trauma (His beloved fire hurt him! Oh, the betrayal!) as well as his developing language skills. I remember Alice's first big trauma was popping her butterfly balloon.
