Camping!

I will start this by saying that I am not a real "outdoorsy" type of person.  I would like to think that I am, but I'm not really a big fan of bugs and I don't particularly like the thought of random animals being able to have easy access to me.  But, Adam grew up going camping and it really seems like a fun family activity.  So for Father's Day, I bought Adam some basic camping gear so we could try it out.  We finally found a weekend, dropped Graham off at Adam's parents' house (the thought of him screaming in the middle of the woods and running right into the campfire did not thrill us), and headed towards the mountains.  Adam's idea was to find a random trail in the woods and hike to a clearning and make our own campsite.  I wanted a little more civilization, so we managed to find a campground off the Blue Ridge Parkway with some pretty remote sites.

Tyler was excited about using his Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag ever since we said we were taking him camping.

Tyler was very proud that he "helped" daddy put up our tent.

Best picture of all three of us that we could get.  (I remembered to bring the tripod, but did not reember the piece that hooks the camera to it.  So we had to pile up some things on the table to get a pic!)

Our home for the night.

Tyler said "my favorite part of camping is finding sticks and eating the food."

How cute is this kid-sized camping chair?

It took a while to get a fire started since most of the branches around were wet.  Adam worked really hard to finally get it started.  I was getting a little nervous trying to think how we would tell Tyler that we weren't going to be able to make s'mores!

We have fire! 

S'mores!  We ate enough to make ourselves sick. 

At about 8:00, Tyler decided that he was ready to go to bed.  He got all snuggled in his sleeping bag and was out.  There were a few calls of "mommy, I have to tell you something" and "daddy, why is the fire still on," but he didn't have any moments of freaking out or trying to escape from the tent.

It wasn't really this cold when we woke up, but it was raining.  Actually, it had been raining (and lightning) all night, so it was a pretty miserable night.  I would like to point out though that I did not complain once.  And Tyler didn't either, except when he woke up at 7:15 and really wanted to get out of the tent.

Checking out our breakfast.

Cooking some pancakes. 

Eating breakfast and drinking hot chocolate in the car since it was so nasty outside.  It was not an ideal breakfast, but it was still an "interesting" ending to a really fun trip.  We can't wait to take some more camping trips!  (Tyler really missed Graham on this one-he kept saying "I wonder what Graham is doing with Gigi and Pops.  I wish he was here so I could rub his head.  He's my brother."