We decided to go on a short camping trip as a trial run for the upcoming family reunion. We thought it would be nice to go some place we have never been, so we drove up to Dinosaur National Park near Vernal. We stayed at a nice KOA just outside of Vernal. Overall, the kids did pretty well with the whole camping thing. That is, if you don't include the "sleeping" time.
They did not sleep well at all. They are not used to having so much space and they also are not used to having to keep covers on them. Sleeping bags don't work for them since they are moving around so much - they would have ended up with their heads at the bottom of the sleeping bag. So we put them on top of their sleeping bags with lots of blankets. It was quite cold at night - they had a hard time staying still enough to keep the blankets on them and their winter PJ's didn't quite cut it. They kept waking up... over and over and over. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep. At one point, after putting a kid back to bed, and got back into my bed, turned to Jason and said, "I wish I could say that I'm never going camping with 2 year olds again..."
However, the kids really did enjoy themselves. We went swimming, made pie-iron pizzas in the campfire, ate at the Father's Day pancake breakfast hosted by the KOA, enjoyed talking to our neighbors, visited the Vernal Temple grounds, and even went to McDonald's to get some ice cream and let the kids play in the air conditioned play area.
Chillin' with Daddy in the tent
Trying out the sleeping arrangements
I took these pictures while they were watching the fire - they were a bit hesitant
Visiting the Vernal Temple grounds
The Dinosaur National Park turned out to be fairly uninteresting; mostly because the visitor's center is being rebuilt and the quarry was closed. We took a short shuttle ride out to a trail that took us up to see some dinosaur bones that are in the rocks. The hike was a little tough on the kids so Jason and I ended up carrying them... have I mentioned how big they are getting? The kids absolutely loved the shuttle ride (or "baby bus" as they call it). They still talk about it.
Someone offered to take this picture for us - it's a little hard to see us :)
It sounds like it was a successful trial run. My sister-in-law always took the porta-crib with them camping until her kids were old enough to stay in bed when they were told. Two porta-cribs in a tent might make for tight quarters but a nice sleep?? Or a bigger tent :)
ReplyDeleteI wish we could use the pack-n-plays - our tent is certainly big enough. Unfortunately, the kids are too tall for the pack-n-plays (despite the fact that we have the largest available) so they are very uncomfortable and hate being in them. The last time we used them was seven months ago and they did a lot of screaming. They're even taller now, so I'm sure it'd be even worse. Who would've thought I'd have such tall kids? :)
ReplyDeleteNo one who knows you, that's for sure!
ReplyDelete;) Wempenator