We survived! Camping 2012

I grew up camping. I loved it. Chris has camped in the past and he liked it. So last year, when the opportunity presented itself, we bought my parents' camper. We were very excited to use it this summer, however, we weren't able to use it very much because the wonderful Eli joined our family in July. We decided we probably wouldn't be hauling out the camper this summer. 

However, on Friday night, my friend, (I think jokingly) suggested that we book a site at Grand Beach as there were some left and they were going to go tenting. Since I'm recovered and feeling great, Eli is a happy baby and we hadn't had the chance to use the camper yet, we decided to give it a try. Seriously, Friday night we booked a campsite and we left Saturday morning at two.

Please keep in mind that:

 a) Chris and I have never camped alone before. 

 b) We have not used the camper this year.

 c) We've actually never used this camper, ever.

 d) We have three children.

 e) We've never been to this campground before.

 f) We gave ourselves only hours notice to prepare.

 g) Oh! Did I mention the last time we drove the camper, the truck overheated and we were stranded on the side of the road until help came? 

However, I wrote lists upon lists and did some quick shopping trips Saturday morning, quickly filling the camper with all that we thought we would need and we did it. 

I do have to chuckle that our ensemble is straight out of the 80s...

We got to the campsite Saturday night around 6, I think. Eli was more than happy to hang out in his chair while we were getting set up. Honestly, the baby was way less work than the 3 and 5 year olds!

 Chelsea was pretty pumped to finally be going camping.

 Here are the boys, doing my favourite camping activity, hanging out by the fire, you know, in your jammies.

 We were camping at Grand Beach campground, so we took a couple of hours to hit up the soft sands of the beach.

 We played with bubble guns and glow sticks, and ate lots of smokies and marshmallows. Just kidding, we actually were wondering if any other campers packed as many vegetables as ours did. We had marinated veggie salad, cucumber salad, cucumber slices, carrots, celery sticks, asparagus and zuchinni. Yum!

 Of course, the best game would probably not have made Grandpa Jerry very happy, but Gavin LOVED playing with the little sliding door in the screen door. It was used to play restaurant or for helping me whenever we needed something from outside brought inside. Many, many, many times though, Gavin would announce, "I have a problem!" and then go into the camper, only to open the little door and call our names over and over again. It was cute, but annoying, all at the same time.

 I loved how secluded the campsite was. It was very wooded and private. Our bay was really quiet too.

 True confession - I did actually drive the van up, rather than joining Chris in the truck. I wasn't 100% sure the truck wouldn't overheat and it doesn't have air conditioning. I'm pretty much a princess who didn't want to deal with the heat for the drive and having a 7 week old baby, I just felt more comfortable in the van. It was great. The boys slept all the way home, so my drive was pretty peaceful!

Good bye camping. Pretty sure we won't be seeing you again this year, but next year, we'll become good friends!