Walter's first camping trip

Memorial Day 2008

I'm writing in brown, the color of mud....because that is what all of our stuff is covered in! But we all had a great time. What Walter loved about camping:

• Being outside and seeing all the green
• Seeing the sunshine
• Hanging above our heads in his back pack so he got the best view
• the 'swishy' of the tent and the sleeping bag that made it so much fun to crawl around and play
• the warm fire
• all the fun people who wanted to play with him
• the rain drops falling on his head and face
• The surplus of long cylinder shaped (some might say bottle shaped) objects that he could chew on

What Walter didn't like about camping

• the car ride to get there (and back)
• having to go to bed instead of stay up all night
• having to nap instead of all the exciting things going on
• cold or luke warm bottles instead of his normal warm bottles
• that everyone wanted to sleep in past 6:30 am instead of get up and play with him
• that he couldn't roll and crawl around in the mud and dirt

It did rain each day but was clear for a majority of the day on Saturday so we got a good hike in and Walter LOVED it. The worst was today because we didn't have the tarp up anymore and it was raining pretty hard. We were up early to get on the road and managed to fix breakfast, coffee and pack in 2 hours in the rain.

All in all it was the perfect mix of games, reading, relaxing, hiking, running, eating family time and, for most of us, drinking. They tried to get me "sloppy drunk" each night but I just don't have it in me anymore I guess. Walter slept great in his pack n play in the tent. Some might think that it's not worth it go through all the effort but after seeing the pictures, how can you pass that up? Walter loved it, we loved it, it was such a great way to spend time together and we hope that Walter will grow up loving the outdoors and spending time with us like this.