First Camping Trip

My husband really wanted to go camping.

When you go camping, I guess part of camping is spending the night in a tent in sleeping bags on the ground in the wilderness where wild bears are roaming around you because you have to many cracker crumbs outside.

I like the idea of day. trips. 


Here is my reasoning. Listen, I like camping. I like chocolate with marshmallows with fire with blankets and five dollar camping chairs. I like it, I do. But when you have two toddlers, it doesn’t work like that. There is no sitting around the fire drinking beer and relaxing. It’s like, child, DO NOT TOUCH THAT FIRE. I have to hide the smores from my kids before they eat all the chocolate from me.

If you do a day trip, it’s pretty much the same thing as camping, except you’re not spending the night. You go, do camp stuff, and instead of sleeping in the tent at night, you drive home around 10 or 11 and sleep in warm beds and have children sleep well in warm beds. What’s the difference in spending the night and leaving early the next morning, or just leaving late at night?

Right. I know, I am right.

So my husband really wanted to go camping. I gave all my opinions. Mom expert here. But he was determined. I zipped my lips and put on my good attitude (er, sort of) and we went for it…

On the way up to the campground, we stopped at this park. It is so cool. Reminds me of WildCat park back home. It’s actually like the exact same thing, just Alaska version. Had the tire swing thing, and the bridge, and the hidden ladders inside and all that.. so fun.

We ate our sack lunch there and then drove to the camp ground.

It was a really beautiful spot.

Boys loved it.

Joshua did SO good. He actually did better than Lucas. He was so happy and well behaved. I thought Lucas would entertain himself more and find things to do since he loves being outside, but it didn’t work that way. It was actually sort of weird. I really thought they would both play on their own with the sticks and dirt and do their thing… but nope.

Around 3 pm, and neither kids had napped yet. I tried to put joshua to nap on me around 1, but he was too excited, but when I tried later he fell asleep within minutes.

This was my favorite part of the whole trip. He hasn’t slept on me since he was a wee baby!! He was so sweet and cuddly.

I sat down and he slept a while on me. Then he woke up after about 30 minutes and just sat with me for another 30 minutes or so. So sweet.

For the rest of the afternoon and evening, we walked around and played in the wild.

I wasn’t really sure how bedtime would go. I knew they wouldn’t go to bed at their normal 8pm time. Even though they both had to be absolutely exhausted. Besides the 30 minute cat nap Joshua took, Lucas and him both ran around and play outside all.day.long.  Literally.

So we tried putting them to bed at 8pm. That didn’t work. Joshua was tired but Lucas didn’t want to sleep.

We tried again at 9pm. We read books, and I tried to play music on my phone. We let them watch a “game” (closest thing to a movie) to see if that would calm them down, but it didn’t really work.  At this point I am exhausted and keeping the “i told you so’s” to myself. My husband is trying to figure out how to put them to bed in a tent. I have no idea, this was your idea.

Finally he says, “maybe we should just drive home.” (mmmmmmmhhhhhhmmmmmmm)  We packed up the tent and drove home (only 45  minutes away) and of course within minutes both boys are totally passed out in the backseat.

When they are older it will be easier to stay the night. But again, what’s the point in staying the night if you live close anyways. Why can’t you just do a day trip??  I am really excited for my husband and our kids to go camping together when they get older. They will have so much boy fun.

Maybe I will join them for the smores.

{P.S. If you live in AK and want to know what campground this is, just send me a message or email and I will tell you. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t like to give out specific locations on the blog.:) }