Swimming and Camping

We went camping with the whole family a couple weeks ago during Erik’s spring break. I’m glad we went, and we had many wonderful moments, but there were also many moments when I felt totally justified in the fact that I have avoided camping ever since having children. Lots of things went wrong. More than even I expected…and I expected trouble. Hence the avoidance of camping for years on end.

We went to Patagonia Lake and had a great time swimming. Unfortunately, all their campsites were under construction so we had to find another place to camp.

The Lake was really nice and had sand for the kids to dig and play in. They kept asking to use their floaties and sand toys at a beach…and luckily this qualified as a “beach” in their book! I hate to post a picture of me in a swimsuit, but the kids are so cute…so oh well ;)

Adam growling at birds at Patagonia Lake.

So after swimming for a few hours we had to decide where to go next. Our first backup plan was to camp at Parker Canyon Lake. Luckily Alex asked about this at Patagonia Lake, and found out that this option was out of commission due to parking lot resurfacing! Crazy…how many places can be closed on Easter weekend? So instead we went up Mt. Lemmon to Rose Canyon campground. There is a lake there for fishing, which was important since fishing was a big part of the excitement of the trip for the boys.

Our campsite

After some searching, Alex found us a lovely campsite and we still had plenty of time to set up camp before it got dark. I finally started to think things were working out fine after all. Well, yes…and no…

Erik and Adam had a great time exploring. It was really beautiful in the forest, and I loved that we didn’t feel like we were too close to other people since we had this hill on one side of us.

LOVE this picture!

Cute brothers :)

Tyler by one of the tents.

This would have been a nice picture of the campsite if Adam hadn’t picked that second to lift up his shirt. Hehe :)

So at first the evening went just fine. Some fussing and whining here and there, but overall better than I had expected. Erik and Adam were actually excited to go to bed in their own tent, and they went to sleep just fine. After a while Tyler went to sleep in his pack-n-play inside our big tent. Could a decent nights sleep actually be possible while camping?

No, no it could not.

When Alex and I were thinking about going to bed soon we heard Erik fussing. He said he felt like he was going to throw up…so I told him to come out of the tent FAST…but he was already throwing up EVERYWHERE! All over himself, the outside of his sleeping bag, on the air mats, under the air mats.  I was totally overwhelmed thinking “How are we going to clean all this up?” The answer - LOTS of paper towels, and water, and wet paper towels. I got frustrated and luckily Alex took over – Thank you honey! It was not pretty. Amazingly the inside of the sleeping back didn’t get dirty or wet in all of this. So after the whole cleaning ordeal Erik was able to go back to sleep in the sleeping bag.

The good part of all of this – Adam never woke up even though he was sleeping right next to where we were cleaning, etc.

After Erik finally went back to sleep, guess who woke up – Tyler of course. He wouldn’t keep his blankets on himself, so he was cold. He woke up every 20 or 30 min for the next couple hours. Then he threw up a little bit (only once thank goodness and only on one blanket) and then slept with Dad the rest of the night. I think I may have slept for 2 or 3 hours that night. What a night :(

Amazingly, the next morning everyone felt fine and we were still able to go fishing.