Camping with a Baby 101

I am not sure why, but our camping trips always turn into a bigger adventure than we both expected or ever hoped it would be. Where should I even begin? I guess I will just start in the order things happened.

1. Drive to the campsite: We met up with our friends Amy and Erik and they followed us to the campsite. Cory and I were rocking out to Journey, getting pumped for the trip. We haven't been camping since last summer and were so excited to finally go again. We were about half way there when I suddenly noticed we had tons of smoking coming out of our exhaust. Moments later Amy texts me and says "Smoke just came billowing out of your exhaust." We had just had our oil changed the day before, so we were unsure what was going on. The smoke went away and so we decided to continue. About 10 minutes later Amy texts me again and says "We are pretty sure an animal just came out of your exhaust!" An ANIMAL? What was an animal doing in our exhaust? Well that explains the smoke billowing out! I just feel bad for that poor animal who died at the expense of our camping trip. RIP little guy.

2. No more room: After we got on the road to our campsite, we were a little worried because all we could see was desert. Neither Cory or I were interested in camping next to a cactus or a bush. We are more tree camping type people. We passed a sign that said the campsite was 1/4 of a mile away. Still no trees. Then, as we turned the corner, it was like finding a diamond in the rough. We both got very excited until we saw the dreaded sign: "Campground Full." Bummer!

Time to move on to plan B. Luckily I learned from my last camping trip and came with several different campsites. if you don't know what I am referring to check out this previous post: http://coryandathenagaunt.blogspot.com/2009/06/corys-birthday-adventure.html In fact, we ended up camping at the same campsite as we did last June.

3. Shoeless in Phoenix: After we set up camp and Joey had his nap, we went on a hike to the swimming hole. Both Cory and I had been there before and I guess we were a little over confident because we thought we would take Amy and Erik on a "short-cut." Instead we just wove them in and out of brush and stickers. Finally we decided to cross back over to the real path. But to cross over you have to cross a stream of water. It is not too deep, but was very cold. The boys crossed over first and then Amy and I decide to go for it. It was breathtakingly cold and I tried to run in flip flops. One of my shoes came off and I got onto the shore without realizing. Erik said, there goes your shoe! It started flowing down the stream, pretty quickly. Erik went running down the shore and saved my shoe! Thank goodness! We managed to safely make it to the swim hole without too many injuries =).

4. Slept like a Baby: Why people use that phrase to describe a good nights sleep, I don't know...but when I use this phrase, I mean it literally. We slept like a baby who wakes up every hour. We had Joseph bundled very well, but he is not great at sleeping in uncomfortable situations (who is?). We put him to bed around 9 pm and he slept very well until about midnight. Then he woke up and Cory cuddled him. He fell back asleep for about an hour. Joey always soothes himself to sleep by sucking his thumb. He sucks his thumb and then throws his arm out and would wack me in the face. He did this over and over again. Needless to say, momma did not sleep much, however, Cory slept through it all. Then at about 3 am he woke up wide awake. I took him this time and got him quiet. We cuddled for about 45 minutes. He laughed and blew bubbles in my face. He finally fell asleep again, however I was pretty cold because of the way I had to be positioned. Lets just say it was the first time I ever watched the sky move from dark to light.

5. When you gotta go, you gotta go: Just as Joey finally fell asleep I realized I had to go to the bathroom sooo bad! I couldn't believe it. I thought I could ignore it, but it wouldn't go away. I waited for 45 minutes, but then I had no choice but to go. I was so afraid I would wake up the baby because were in the same sleeping bag. Somehow I managed to sneak out of the sleeping bag, crawl out of the tent, and come back into the sleeping bag without waking up Joey! Pretty awesome huh!

Both Cory and I were pretty tired in the morning, but we both agree that it was totally worth going camping. We had such a great time with Amy and Erik. Other than a rough night of sleep, Joey did awesome. He loved the campfire and sat on our lap for 2 hours playing with us and watching the fire. We made foil dinners, played bocce ball, hiked, made smores, and enjoyed good company.

Playing Bocce Ball

Hanging around the camp

Family photo

Joseph loved being outside

Got to love the flannel =) I love this boy!