A Dry Run

In two weeks, we are planning to drive up to the Duluth area (about 2.5 hours northeast) to go camping for the first time as a family! I am so excited. I have very fond memories of camping in the summer with my dad when I was little. And I am really looking forward to having some of the same experiences with Andrew, Ella and Lily. We hope to make this an annual summer excursion if all goes well.

Since the girls have never slept in a tent before, we thought we would give them a little introduction into the world of camping by setting up camp in the backyard!

They did great! They played outside, we made s'mores over the camp stove flame and then we read books and went to sleep. Everyone made it through the night! And we were all "happy campers" in the morning.




Andrew cooked up breakfast on our camp stove that we purchased Friday night. Then we packed up and "headed home".



Aren't the girls so adorable? We found these backpacks with sleeping bags in them at Target on clearance and the girls just love them! Ella has her sleeping bag all laid out on her bedroom floor right now and wants to sleep in it tonight.

All in all, I think our dress rehearsal went extremely well and I only hope the actual experience at the campground goes as well. :-)

(Sidenote: Hmm....wondering where these pictures are coming from? Well I found our old camera--you know, the one I broke a year ago that led to me buying the new fancy schmancy camera). It was the LCD screen that broke on the old camera, so you actually have to look through the viewfinder to take photos with it. And its a bit like the old 35mm days when you had to wait to see what your pictures looked like until you got your roll of film developed. I had no idea what the pictures would look like until I uploaded them to the computer. They didn't turn out too badly. I still miss my other camera though.)