Camping at the River

For months, Michael has really wanted to have a camp out down at the river behind our house. It is a perfect place to have a camp out, with a deep cool river, tons of space, bbq grill, sand box, swim dock, etc. We postponed because our weekends were always so busy and Sam was so young. The whole camping season was passing us by and so in March, we picked our next empty weekend (the first weekend in June) and wrote camping across it on the calendar. We invited a few friends and made big plans.
This weekend was the camp out. We had four families plus ourselves come to play. At one point we had four tents set up. On Saturday night, my parents threw a great party at their house and invited all of our guests and us to join them. We hiked up the hill from the river and had the opportunity for a great swim in the pool, delicious food and an amazing concert under the full moon. This worked our well for some, and less well for others.
The thing about camping is that it is a lot of work. Most of the work revolves around keeping the kids safe and happy.
Here is what we did. We drew fantastic chalk drawings all over the patio. I was so impressed with my friends' kids' artistic ability. We built campfires morning and night and ate lots of s'mores. We swam in the cool, deep river above the dam and floated in tubes. We splashed below the dam and slipped and slid and threw rocks. We threw the kids in the totally fenced in sand pit and sat in lawn chairs and drank wine and read books. My wonderful friend Rebecca and her sweet girls taught Davis to play Uno. Davis and Violet played Ruby and Louise and made Sam be Max. (From the show/book Max and Ruby). I got to spend some quality time with Rebecca and Cheris, and Rob and Benita and Phillip and my own husband who was gone all last week and is gone again this week. I got to see my friend Debbie, however briefly, at my parent's party as well as Zach and Elizabeth and several of my parents' old friends that I haven't seen in a while. I got to listen to Terry Hendrix sing live, even though I didn't get to see much of the actual concert.
That's all the good stuff.
I also got to administer a lot of time outs in the wilderness, beg my children to go to bed, pee outside, get sunburned, sweat, and deal with drunk shenanigans in the night. I also changed a lot of dirty, sandy, wet clothes and diapers and slept very lightly when I really needed to sleep deeply.
That's the not so good stuff.
My conclusions:
I love to camp during the day. I like to rise early and greet the day and my friends. I love to throw my kids out into the cool morning and sit by the fire and watch them play. I love getting to spend all that time with my friends. I love not having internet or phone to tempt me away from being in the now. I love swimming and just being outside.
I do not like to camp during the night. It is so hard to make the kids go to sleep in a tent. It is not fun to go to bed hot and sweaty and dirty. It is just not me. I like RV camping! Camp outside, but run inside at night and shower and crawl in nice soft mattress with AC going.
We'll do it again. We'll do it lots. But I think we'll make the sleeping outside optional. We'll set up the stuff and be there all day. I'll let Davis and Michael sleep in the tent. But Sam and I will retreat in the night to our house and return first thing in the morning to sit by the fire. We have room for friends to crash up at our house too. Or they can stay for the day, retreat to their house and return in the morning like I will. And I'll save my money for that RV. Enjoy the pictures. There are more on flickr.
Now I've got to get to work on getting ready to host Michael's family reunion.
XO! Amber