Family Camp-out!

Well, we took the plunge and bought a tent! Our friends, the Edmondson's talked us into the grand idea of camping. We got a couple of camping necessities for Christmas from Nicole and Brad, but didn't have a tent yet. We finally settled on one after many, many hours of research to make sure we chose the right one for the right price. (Would you believe the day after our tent arrived we found the exact same tent on a different website for considerably cheaper!?) Oh, well! Anyway, we were very anxious to put it up for the first time. We wanted to figure it out at home rather than at a campsite for the first time. Boy am I glad we didn't wait till we went somewhere! It took us a very long time to get it up. I am not going to say how long, I don't want to embarass ourselves. But let's just say, that it was not smooth and effortless. But aahh the reward of "raising the roof"! That was great!


So we decided to sleep in our tent (still in our back yard). We were all so excited about it. We wanted to see how the family would do "roughing it". So we all dressed nice and warmly (the temp got down to 46 degrees!) and all snuggled up in the tent. And in complete "roughing it" style, we took the laptop out there to watch a movie! And once the kids had fallen asleep, Brian and I were able to check our email with the wireless internet! All went well! At 1:30 in the morning, Drew and Seth had to use the bathroom. So as I was unzipping the tent to go into the house, Drew very seriously asked, "Are there going to be coyotes out there?" I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little afraid to make the 10 step walk to the back porch after that question. But I assured him that all was safe in our own backyard.


All in all, we all did very well. Brian and I slept quite comfortably on our air mattress (remember: we were "roughing it") and we stayed warm enough. Even our dog, Nestle, liked being out there. Our first REAL camping trip is tentatively scheduled for Mother's Day weekend. We will camp somewhere local. Below are some pictures of our Back-Yard Campout!