A camping we will go...

So, this is where we spent our weekend: and we actually had a good time. Gabe had been talking about camping for a while and because we hadn't been since he was about 18 months old and I was pregnant with Mya, we decided that Memorial Day weekend would be a good time to try it out. We picked Percy Priest Lake as our camping destination because (1) it's only 15 minutes from our house and if I decided to bale out home was very close and (2) it's on the lake and although our particular campsite wasn't on the shore, sand and water were only a short drive away. I should also mention that the tent was very waterproof as it rained our first night and even if I thought we were going to be carried away like Noah in the ark, not one drop of water got inside.

Alena probably had the least amount of fun on our little trip. I kept telling her that if she'd pick her little self up and walk life would be much easier, but she insisted on crawling and this is how she looked at the end of the FIRST day.

You can imagine what she looked like at the end of day 3. Alena, actually did better than I thought she would especially since we were all sleeping in a very small space, but no naps and no place to play eventually caught up with her.

Mya and Gabe had a wonderful time and Gabe told me, "I like camping so much I wish we could stay 80 days!" They played the entire time - never once telling us they didn't have anything to do - with their favorite activity being making "recipes" which are concoctions of water, dirt, bugs, grass, etc mixed together. They made these for hours.

When Alena wasn't on the ground getting absolutely filthy, she had this viewpoint.

We spent a good portion of every day at the lake enjoying sand, sun and water. Gabe kept saying, "I think the tide is coming in." but we assured him it was just the waves from the many boats that were going by.
One afternoon Mya made friends with a little Hispanic girl and they were so cute to watch since neither one could understand the other, but they played so well together. Mya cried when we had to leave because, "I want the girl in the pink shirt to go home with me."
We don't usually let Alena have her pacifier out of the bed, but it did help with the sand eating for about the first fifteen minutes then she decided that the sand/water tasted better.

This is just so Gabe.

We actually had the campsite reserved for three nights, but we chickened out and decided yesterday evening to quit while everyone was having fun and come home early. I'm so glad we did so that today we are all recovering, doing laundry, etc. I don't know when a shower and clean bed have felt as good as they did last night, but our first camping experience as 5 was good and I think we'll do it again when I forget about how much work this weekend was...