You never know how something is going to go until you try it, right?  As with anything, we knew camping could go either way with two small kiddos and the uncertainty of weather and a lack of routine (lack of sleep especially).  While it wasn’t the most relaxing weekend away, overall the kids had a good time, and so did we.  There were the frustrations of bugs, of course, and poor Enzo may have gotten bit even more than I did, which led to a trip to the store for some antihistamines.  Thankfully the bites didn’t seem to bug him too much, though.

Setting up camp went fairly smoothly since both kids were finishing up a nap in the van.  Once they did wake up, though, the process slowed down a lot as things often do with kids.  We had kind of planned on a slow afternoon with more activities for the next day, but did take the kids for a walk by the river so that Josh and Enzo could try their hand at some fishing.  We stuck with easy food and readied ourselves for some cranky kids as they got tired, but had no blackout curtains to help them fall asleep.  Judge if you want to, but the portable DVD player was kind of a lifesaver because we were able to get them to lay down and kind of relax once we were done reading books.  Josh and I were also exhausted, and I think we all fell asleep as soon as it got dark enough.  Bliss.

Morning came all too quickly, and the kids were up with the sun, but that’s actually later then they typically get up, so it was nice.  It was surprisingly chilly, so we got everyone bundled up and while Josh made a fire and I attempted to prepare some breakfast we wrapped the kids up and let them use the Kindles to do some coloring.

While I don’t want to always bring along electronics, they were really helpful at keeping the kids occupied so they could sit close to the fire and I didn’t have to worry about them too much (Miss Graceful especially).  Poor kiddos were too cold and Phoebe just wanted to be held, so the Kindle helped free up our arms so we could tend to more important things.  Once the sun started peeking through the trees and we all had food in our bellies, the kids perked up and we knew it would be a good idea to get our day started before the kids got too antsy.

We knew we could only spend so much time hanging around the campsite and exploring the river, so we had already decided in advance to take the kids out for some fun riding some rides and hopefully getting them nice and tired out.  So, off we went to Paul Bunyan Land!  To be continued… after some coffee. 😉