The "Labor" of Camping

Once again, Erik's three-day weekend actually fell on a good weekend and we went camping. I've come to the decision that camping is a lot of work, especially now that we have a 19-month old in tow. So even though we had the weekend off from our normal work labors, it certainly wasn't a piece of cake.

First, Erik decided we needed a bigger tent that would accommodate Lillian's portable crib in the hopes that we could avoid the sleeping problems of last time. The tent we ended up with is great once it's set up, but ohmygosh! It was the biggest pain to get it there! Hopefully it will be easier once we've done it a few times, but we still don't understand how the bay windows work in the second bedroom. (Yes, I just said "bay windows" and "second bedroom" in reference to a tent...) After all our hard work, we got to watch Jared and Ashley put theirs up with no problems that I saw, even though it was bigger than ours. I was soooo jealous! I will admit, though, getting her to sleep was a TON easier.

Once camp was set up, I then had to deal with watching Lillian to make sure she didn't fall in either the fire or the river. By the end of the weekend, I was exhausted just from that. And to be perfectly frank, there were a couple near misses and I will be eternally grateful to everyone else who had their eyes open.

On Saturday, we all headed up to Tony Grove. Lillian fell asleep about 10 minutes before we got there, so we let her sleep a little longer as everyone else headed out in the canoes. We didn't want to just sit there while everyone else had fun, so we made the mistake of waking her up. She was fine for a while, but then the crank to beat all cranks showed up. I took her back to the truck to see if I could get her to take a nap, but she was having nothing to do with it. We decided we better get her some food, so we continued on up to Bear Lake while everyone else finished up their fishing and relaxing on the beach. Then we all headed back to camp for some dutch oven cooking.

Now there's a meal that is no easy feat. Sure, once you get everything in the ovens, you can just let it do it's thing. But first you have to prep everything and get some good briquettes going. And once you're done eating, you can't just clean the ovens like normal - it has to be done in just the right way so you keep the season. In the end, it was fantastic (except that the cake didn't come out nearly as well as it did over the 4th), but is it really worth all the work? I'd probably have to say yes.

Lillian slept on the way home from the lake, but she wasn't the happiest baby even after the nap. She ended up going to bed kind of early, but it was nice to be able to just sit with the adults and not be worried that she was going to dive head first into the pit. But Laddie, on the other hand, had a bee in his bonnet and whined almost the entire night!

After two nights, we got up this morning and tore everything down. The tent sure came down a lot easier than it went up, but of course, it doesn't fit back in the bag. I finally figured out how to fold our old one so it fit perfectly every time, so I'm hoping I can get there with this one. I may just need to set it up in front of our house and try a few different ways. It turned out the food we'd saved for breakfast was ruined when all the ice in the cooler melted and made soggy hashbrowns that crushed the eggs, so after everything was cleaned up, we went to Angie's for a proper breakfast (with a still cranky baby who wanted my breakfast more than her own). Honestly, sometimes I'm surprised our friends will still go out to eat with us and our unruly kid. It's probably a good thing she's cute most of the time.

But now that we're home, I can look back and say it was a fun trip. We had great friends to go with, and it wouldn't be the same if everything went entirely as it was supposed to. I have to say, though, that I'm glad I still have tomorrow off. I need a vacation from my vacation!