Camping at Grandma's House

On Friday, while Perry was working from home, I asked if we could set the tent up in the backyard for the boys to sleep in that night. We hadn't been camping yet this year, and I thought this would be fun for them. He responded with a, "why don't we just go somewhere to camp?" After a busy few weeks, I thought this would be the last thing he wanted to do. We hadn't discussed where we'd camp, but agreed to go somewhere. At dinner with Grandma that evening, she told us how she was planning on going to Whitefish to unload a grill for the house, without any help, so we volunteered to meet her there to help, and then go camping after. 

We scrambled around Friday evening and Saturday morning to get everything packed up. It *barely* fit! After a long drive to Whitefish with a lot of traffic, we met up with Grandma and had lunch at MacKenzie River Pizza before we went out to the house. Although the house had a ton of mosquitoes, the kids enjoyed running around for a few minutes. Charlotte enjoyed running/scooting/rolling down the hill off the deck. SO cute to watch! I would say she's walking 50% of the time now!

Before we left Whitefish, we stopped at Whitefish Lake to meet up with a mutual friend of mine and Perry. Unfortunately they were out on a paddle boat when we arrived which caused us to miss out on seeing them. (I'm hoping to take the kids back up there this week to see them again though!) We finally made it out of Whitefish around 4:00 and planned on camping somewhere in the Swan Lake area, about  2 hours away...and once we started exploring the area, we found every spot was taken. At that point we decide to just camp out at Placid Lake outside of Seeley...when we arrived there, we discovered every spot was taken there too.... So we camped in Grandma's backyard by the river. Basically we spent a total of about 6 hours in the car thorough the entire day, and ended up camping 50 miles from home...

 Camping at Grandma's had a couple big perks though! For one, we were able to use the tractor to haul everything back and forth. For two, it had a bathroom. Enough said. 

Before Perry and I could even get our stuff down by the fire pit, the boys were already playing in the river. Hunter was crawdad hunting and thought he found one. 

 Charlotte was a trooper the entire trip. She hardly fussed at all. She napped for a total of maybe 2 hours throughout the day. And missed out on her morning and afternoon snack. 

 The boys were awesome too! They also missed out on an afternoon snack and kept their attitudes in check throughout the day even though dinner didn't happen until close to 8:00p. 

 After a little arguing, we finally had the tent set up. Perry hates reading the directions...

 Once the boys finished eating, I told them I had a surprise for them - Glow-in-the-dark bubbles. Except they either didn't work, or it wasn't dark enough. I bought glow sticks and dump the insides into the bubbles, and the container was glowing, but the bubbles didn't. 

 Luckily I brought other glow sticks to play with. 

 Like these glasses. Hard to keep on, but fun in the dark!

 Charlotte had her fun with the glow-in-the-dark stuff too!

 JP probably had the most fun though!

 We all crawled into bed around 10:30 and despite the few rocks we were laying on, we all fell asleep fairly quickly. Charlotte woke up around 1:15 and cried for a while. She was probably out of sorts being outside in the dark. After about fifteen minutes of bawling, she finally calmed down, and slept with me. She did the air sucking thing that people do after they stop crying for about half an hour. Does that have a name? 

Just as she was sound asleep, it started sprinkling...Before I knew it, we were in the middle of a down pour with flash lighting and LOUD thunder. It woke Perry up (which is hard to do) and even though two of us were talking in our normal voices, it was still hard to hear each other. Charlotte and Hunter slept through it all. JP woke up at the end of the thunderstorm. He came over to me and told me he was scared, and asked to snuggled with me. Before I could even get a word out, he was snuggled up on my pillow, asleep. Once Perry and I were done laughing about it, I woke him back up to go get his sleeping bag and bring it over next to me. After he was laying there for a while, I asked him how he was doing. "Not good mom!" He then scooted to the bottom of his sleeping bag and plugged his ears for a while... I was just glad JP and Hunter didn't wake up during the storm and need to go to the bathroom! Perry left the tent for a while so he could watch the storm, and there was no way I was about to leave the tent, let alone my sleeping bag!

 I did get to wake up to this cutie though! Actually, it was the sounds of her and Hunter giggling, as he had crawled into the pack-n-play to play with her before we everyone else woke up. 

By the time we left the cabin, we had a lot of tire people! And I'm the only one who hasn't napped yet! Not fair!

Camping Lessons, From a Mom Who Doesn't Camp

If I were to describe myself to someone, outdoorsy probably wouldn't be one of the words I would use. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being outdoors, taking hikes and the like, but let's be honest, I love electricity. Heyo! Check it out, I can flip this switch and I have light! Unfortunately, the man I married, bless his heart, loves to camp. Looks like I have some adjusting to do...

So without further ado, I give you my list of the 8 things I learned while camping - in a tent. The first is the most important one, hence why I'm putting it in the #1 spot, the rest are in random order. Rather, the order I learned them in as the trip progressed.

1. There is a right and wrong way to get in and out of a tent. I unzip tent, step-in, take shoes off, set them on the rug. Don't do that. It's wrong - you'll bring dirt in. Instead, unzip tent, sit down inside tent with feet still outside, take shoes off, place them inside. I get it. Whatever. You try to remember all the steps while carrying a crying baby, in the rain. Stop glaring at me; it's just dirt.

2. The wilderness is no place for a baby to eat. But like I mentioned in the camping post, I couldn't just leave her at home to fend for herself. If you have to bring a baby, bring a formula fed baby. Then all you have to worry about is warming up water, in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity. Good plan... Since giving a baby cold milk is unheard of, better bring a breastfed baby, this way baby always gets warm milk. Know that you are going to have to practically take your shirt off to feed this crying child, in the middle of the night, when you are freezing under layers of blankets already. And pray you don't leak. That shit gets cold up against your body at 3 am. So does baby throw up and baby hands on your tummy. On second thought, better just leave the baby at home to fend for itself.

3. Bring an extra flashlight. And then two more extra. It's inevitable that when you need one, you're not going to be able to find any of them. We, rather, I, brought two. I took a trip to Wal-mart with all three children in tow, so the boys could pick out flashlights. And I didn't even use a cart! And survived! Of course we packed those two flashlights, but I *assumed* Perry would pack at least one more. It would figure that when I really needed one, like at 3 am, neither are to be found.  Picture this: Kiki is crying, I am looking for a flashlight, dad is snoring, and I'm becoming more frustrated without any light source. But at least I was able to find my cell phone which lead me to find a flashlight. Sorry if I woke the whole tent up in the process...

4. This brings me to diapering a baby in the wild. We cloth diaper here in the Dustin household, which leads us to my next point. Cloth or disposable diapers while camping? Both stink. Generally there are no garbage cans in the middle of nowhere, so have fun with that smell if you're using disposables. If you cloth diaper, you probably have a wet bag to put your diapers in. While it's a smart idea to put the clean diapers in a place you can find them in the dark, it's obviously not wise to put them by your head, by a window. When it rains, and leaks into the tent, those suckers are going to absorb it all. At least the tent won't get muddy from all the dirt you tracked in earlier by not not following rule #1. Hey little baby, let me change your diaper from a wet one to a slightly wet one. While we're at it, I hope you don't mind hanging out half naked while I find where the wipes are. Payback for when I have to practically take my shirt off to feed you. Oh, and sorry for the bright light in you face, it's hard to hold a flashlight in your mouth so you can see what you're doing. Changing a diaper in the dark isn't as easy as it sounds. Maybe I should have just left the baby at home?

5. Leave your husband at home. Just kidding. Don't do that. Leave his cell phone and iPad at home. If you don't leave at least his cell phone at home, which doubles as an alarm, you will hear said alarm go off while you are camping, at 6 am. And you'll have to wake him up like you normally do for him to turn it off each morning. Come on - no phones while you're camping! Unless you are the mom, then you're exempt because it falls into the category "For Emergencies Only" (see #3), not the "In case I forget to wake up" category.

6. I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to be breathed on when I'm sleeping. I also hate fans. I cannot stand them blowing on my face. I don't care if I'm sweating, point that fan in a different direction. Maybe this has to do with my childhood fear of wind? With that said, this is probably a surprise to most, but I don't care for Jeep rides. Guess what happens during Jeep rides? I get the wind in my face, the whole trip. And even if we're going slow enough so there is no wind, the truck that passed us going 35 mph just threw wind AND dirt in my face. And I don't like being cold. Wind in my face + being cold = I'm getting pretty miserable, but am sucking it up.

7. Bring extra clothes, a lot of them. I confess, I packed too many clothes on this trip...for myself. Although I packed an extra set for each of my boys, I clearly should have packed a couple sets more. A couple sets were wet from playing in the water, and one set had dirt on it. How come you can wear dirt covered clothes into the tent, but not your clean soled shoes?!

And finally....

8. Camp with people who have been camping multiple times before. They will bring the things you forget. Like food and water. The rug for the shoe rule I didn't know existed. A broom to sweep the tent out because I didn't memorize the shoe rule. And other miscellaneous things you forgot, like a camper, and a toilet...

A Camping Trip to Placid Lake

I confess, sometimes I'm really bad about keeping up to date. I'm warning you now, this is a looong one, but at least I moved the pictures around to entertain you a bit! Anyways, two weekends ago we took a little camping trip to Placid Lake, about 40 miles from home. We seriously need to get out more. There is so much to do in a 50 mile radius of our house... One of our wedding gifts from Perry's parents was a huge 8 person tent that we hadn't used since we received it. *Working opposite schedules sucked* 

Like I mentioned in my previous post about camping, Perry's family really enjoys camping. What I didn't mention what that I don't really enjoy camping. I recall camping maybe 4 times when I was younger. Add a couple more times if you count sleeping in the backyard. Our family had a large 10 person tent, that was awesome, but we hardly used, especially once we got a camper with two sets of bunk beds. If I remember correctly that tent had its final hoorah when Robin and her friend camped out in the backyard for one of her birthdays...in May...and they were snow on so the tent collapsed. Anyways, I'm not fond of camping, but I went regardless.

Like normal, we left once Perry arrived home from work. Grabbed a bite to eat on the way out of town. Then it started to rain. I'm thinking, "Seriously? Can't we go tomorrow?" Perry could clearly read my mind and reassured me that just because it's raining here doesn't mean it will be raining where we're camping. Yeah yeah...okay. He was semi-right.

We arrived at our campsite around 7:30 and began setting up the tent we had yet to use. By we, I mean Perry and John. Luckily Betty was there to read the directions, even if they didn't want them!

Though the boys were super excited about sleeping in a tent, they were able to control themselves long enough to help Grandpa John by holding the stakes for him. 

Here's our mansion, mostly set up. It's  like two 4-people tents put together. There's a zippered wall between the two "rooms." Just about as soon as it was completely set-up, it started sprinkling. Like I said, he was semi-right about the rain. Dry when we arrived.

 Yes, the infant baby, Charlotte, came along too. I was paranoid she was going to freeze to death so I bundled her up, excessively. I want to say the temperature reached a low of 45 by early the next morning. Too cold for a baby. That's my opinion, but I couldn't leave her at home... 

Perry, Hunter, and JP spent the rest of the evening at Grandma & Grandpa's camp spot roasting hotdogs before bed, in the down pouring rain. My guess is they were under the awning of the camper. Charlotte and I hung out in the tent, while it rained. She was a little fussy and so was I. It was raining. Just kidding. It was storming, with lightening and thunder. By the time the boys made it to bed, they were so exhausted. I was slightly paranoid they might freeze to death as well, so I made Perry round up a blanket to put over their sleeping bags.

Meanwhile...the storm went on, raining pouring and all, until about 1am. I know this because I could hardly sleep, and I had cell service. Unfortunately for Perry, he woke up in the morning to find his pillow soaking wet from an apparent leak. (I smiled on the inside. That's what you get for making us camp in the rain!) I am happy to report no one froze to death. I did have doubts about myself as well. When was the last time you breastfed a baby at 4:00am, outside, when it's 40-something degrees out? You lift your shirt up and tell me it's not cold! I digress...

After breakfast the next morning, the plan was to take the back roads to Jocko Lake, about 20 miles from our camp spot, to go fishing. We stopped about two miles up the road at the Placid Lake State Park campgrounds and found out that even if we did make it to Jocko Lake, we wouldn't be able to set foot on the land because it was on the reservation. We continued on anyways. For about 45 minutes, through the backwoods, going about 20 mph. Because we hadn't arrived at the lake yet, we were going to turn around but instead turned on a side road called "Second Creek" and drove down it for a little ways. I just pulled up a map on Google to see how much further we had to go. It looked like maybe 3 more miles until we had reached Upper Jocko Lake...and we had turned around. Go figure. 

By the time we arrived back at our campsite, I was exhausted. I fed Charli and fell asleep listening to Hunter and JP playing in the creek with Grandma. Charlotte and I woke up an hour later to two little boys crying outside the tent. Grandma slipped and fell in the creek all while pulling Hunter and JP in with her. I had two soaking wet, sobbing boys on my hands. I helped them dry off and just as we finished Perry arrived back from his afternoon "hunting" trip, and was carrying a bowl full of crawdads.

And then they were off to the creek again to look for more with him.

 Perry was like a kid in a candy store every time he caught one. 

 Ahh...aren't they handsome?

 Like I said, I just finished drying them off before they headed back down to the creek...JP was literally dumping water on his head, and then complained about being cold?

 My boys with their loot. Though you can't see in the bowl, there is probably 25-30 crawdads in there. Perry was adamant about cooking and eating them. I've never eaten them before, and I surprisingly enjoyed them! They tasted like shrimp!

 Pardon my hair. I'm on another jeep ride into town going about 45 mph on the highway so we could have ice cream. Charli looks a little scared...

Hunter LOVED sitting in the front with Grandma! After a long wait in line for wonderful tasting ice cream, we headed back to camp.

 Look who passed out in daddy's arms?! I don't recall the last time JP or Hunter fell asleep like that!

 Isn't that just too cute?!

 Before we left town, John put the top up on the jeep, just in case it rained. The clouds looked pretty threatening. Luckily, it didn't rain though...

 Such a big girl!

 After a nice breakfast Sunday morning, everyone was ready to go home. I was ready to shower! Perry and I loaded up our car and took down the tent before breakfast was served, all while the boys were off playing in the dirt, or doing what boys do I suppose. After breakfast, JP inquired about his blanket, so I told him we better go check in the tent. He excitedly ran the 30 yards or so to where the front door to our tent would have been, look up astounded, and calmly asked where the tent went. I told him it must have just disappeared, in which he nearly started bawling because he forgot his blanket inside...Perfect opportunity to wean him from his blanket right? That's what I thought too, then he found it in the car the next day...