Trip to The Mountains

This weekend we attempted our first camping trip as a family of 5. We headed up to Big Basin to camp in the redwood forest with our friends, the Pozzi's. We all had a great time walking through the woods, throwing stones in the creek, cooking dinner over a fire, making s'mores, and playing in our new gigantic tent that sat under the gigantic redwoods.

Did you notice how I used the word "attempted" in my first sentence? Yeah, that was on purpose.  Everything was just ducky until 11pm.  That's when Avery woke up screaming. It was obvious to me from the sound of her cry and her body language that Avery was down right mad when she woke up found herself still in the sleeping bag in the tent.  She was not at all happy about her sleeping arrangements. (This was in spite of me laying her usual night time blanket in the sleeping bag, so that she would have a familiar scent and texture on her face.)  And she carried on and on. It was the first time since weaning that I wished I was still nursing! There was no reasoning with her, and distraction wasn't much of an option either. And I just "knew" that even if I managed to get Avery back to sleep, that she would soon wake up and start the whole cycle over.  So we packed up our stuff and headed home.

Soooooo disappointing! You know that terribly-sad-pouty-face that babies make before they burst into tears? That was the look Caleb had when Matt carried him into the car.  I felt so bad for the boys because they had REALLY been enjoying themselves. But I think we made the right decision. There wasn't much point to us all -and by "all" I mean our family plus everyone else within earshot of Avery's screaming- being miserable throughout the night.  We were home 45 minutes later, and Avery went to bed just fine in her crib.

As we drove home I remembered how when Matt and I were making plans for this trip with our friends, Julie and I felt strongly that our first trip should be 1) just for one night and 2) close to home.  There was a reason for that!! I was super glad we didn't plan 2 nights in Yosemite, like we originally discussed! Someday we will do Yosemite... but not this year, that's for sure.

All in all, it was still a fun trip.  But as Caleb reminds us, "We didn't go camping since we didn't stay the whole night. We just went to the mountains."  We'll have to try camping again another time.