Virtute.org

We haven’t been camping as a family since we camped at Zion when Nicole was a baby.  (This is why).  Now that Thomas is sleeping through the night, we thought we could try again.

We bought a tent on Craig’s list a few weeks ago.  Here’s Zach assembling it for the first time:

The kids loved exploring the woods and trails:The tent was awesome and huge.  It separated into 3 rooms:Dinner = ham, sausage, potatoes, cabbage, corn, carrots, rolls and dessert (all provided by the ward):The big kid’s room:Thomas woke up in the middle of the night and cried, but since we had friends sleeping in tents nearby, I didn’t want to let him cry himself back to sleep and wake everyone else up.  I feed him to sleep and put him back in his bed (the pack n’ play) a few times, but eventually just gave up and tried to sleep with him in my arms.  Ila woke up crying and we invited her into our bed.  Nicole was the next to wake up and cry and join us in bed.  Soon the bed was so crowded we could hardly move and when anyone did move the whole air mattress moved and the three youngest kept waking up and crying.  Charlotte was the last to join us (she had a spot at our feet).  I took this picture just before taking Charlotte to the bathroom in the middle of the night:With 4 of our 5 kids in our air mattress with us and the three youngest three crying intermittently, none of us could sleep.  So a little after 3 am, I took the 4 youngest kids home and left Zach and Isaac to finish out the night in peace.  Nicole cried most of the way home about leaving Dad behind and refused to understand that we were coming back for him in the morning.  I tucked Nicole into her bed at home, but soon she was crying that she was “worried about Dad.”  She fell asleep sometime after 4 AM.The kids started waking up at 6:30 AM, but it took us till after 9 to have everyone dressed and fed and ready to go get Dad. 

Maybe we’ll try camping again in a few years.