Boys' first camping trip

Our first camping trip with the boys was a smashing success. Sure there were some small little hiccups like us not factoring in how hard it was going to be to get the boys down for naps and bedtime (ended up resorting to car and stroller rides) nor how difficult it would prove to keep them quiet in the tent so they wouldn't wake up everyone in the park after they woke up both mornings at 5.45!!! And then, poor Oliver spiked a temperature the second night so we decided to come home a day early (another ear infection and bout of tonsillitis, poor kiddo!), but Paul and I didn't really mind too much as we were really looking forward to getting some sleep.

But all of it was more than worth it to see how much the boys loved it.

In planning the trip, Paul and I were sensible and chose a caravan park in a tourist city only 45 minutes south of our home just in case things didn't work out as well as we were hoping. This particular park had a fully equipped camp kitchen, clean toilets and showers, and best of all a fantastic playground and jumping pillow just meters from our tent. We could just sit in our chairs out front of the tent and watch the boys play and play and play with all the other great kids staying there.

Oliver was content to play in the dirt or chase ducks or sit in his little camp chair and watch the big kids.

Elliot, on the other hand, was in heaven. He made friends with heaps of the other kids especially Justabent (his name for a cute little 4-year-old who was actually called Dylan) and Hannah a 15-year-old girl who was super sweet to him, always looking out for him on the jumping pillow especially when the big kids were on and he'd get bounced all over the place.

We kept things simple on the food front sticking with yogurt, instant oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, PB & J sandwiches for lunch and take-out for dinner.

And we ventured out into Mandurah a couple of times. Our first night there, we took the boys to the awesome playground on the foreshore and got Thai food for dinner. And the next day we took our bikes out and rode all along the harbour and canals and gobbled sushi on the shore fighting off sea gulls and massive pelicans who were blatantly trying to score tourist lunches.

We couldn't have asked for a better or more fun introduction to camping for the boys. And it's only  going to get easier as the boys get older and we get a few more conveniences for our camp set-up. Want to come and join us sometime?

P.S. I forgot to mention that sharing a tent with Oliver was enlightening to say the least. It turns out that the little monster is a prolific sleep crawler. We were woken up several times each night to him crying out, presumably because he was cold and/or disoriented. When we got up to check on him, it wasn't always easy to find him. He scooched himself all over the place usually ending up wedged into the corner of the tent face down on the cold tent floor with his bottom in the air. We'll have to work out a way to strap him down for our next camping trip.