tizimatt.info

We finally made our much talked about and much postponed camping trip. We have bought a large tent at the end of last summer, and we were all looking forward using it, especially Keegan. We finally made our first micro trip the first weekend of August. Keegan was so excited and he has been talking about it for a long time. This of course, did not stop him from whining and complaining the whole trip, and really making it very difficult for all of us. But we will not give up.

Keegan has been skipping (or better refusing to take) his naps lately, unfortunately, so we are in this transitional time where he does not want to sleep, but he is very cranky if he doesn’t. Fortunately, the campsite was about 1 hour away, so he got a short one in the car (do we need to go back to driving around so he sleeps??? Flashback).

We picked a camp site near Lake Cuyamaca., in a pretty forested area.

Our spot was perfect: large, shady and somewhat away from other campers. We easily set up our cool tent: it is a “6 people” tent (not sure how they would all fit), but fits us perfectly, with a zippered divider in between the two sections.

We blew up our mattresses and got settled in. Keegan especially liked his sleeping bag and his cool McQueen backpack.

We tried to go for a walk, but Keegan did not want to walk. So we had dinner instead. Matt got everything perfectly organized, and he grilled delicious hamburgers.

Keegan smiling before his meltdown because we forgot ketchup

We finally dragged Keegan to a short walk at sunset. The mountain top seemed like it was on fire. The picture does not do it justice.

Keegan’s portrait of us

We saw a few rabbits and various bugs and an amazing tarantula. WOW, I never saw one in the wild.

We got back to camp just before it got dark. It was past 8, so we started the sleeping routine. Naively, we thought he would be tired, since he did not have a long nap. Our plan was to get him to sleep, so we could enjoy some quiet, adult time, maybe watching the stars, or a movie. Ah! Someone had different ideas. He was literally bouncing off the walls (or mattress), and would not go to sleep. He complained it was too loud, or there was too much light, he would constantly peek in our “room”, and did not quiet down a second. We had to just lie there, in the darkness, pretending to sleep, hoping he would go down. By 9.30, he was still bouncing around, at which point, we figured we may as well go to sleep. I put ear plugs on and I could swear we fell asleep before he did.

The next morning, he was up at 6. We set him up with the DVD player and his favorite movies so we could rest a little more. At home, we can’t take him away form the tv, but of course here movies did not do the trick.

He lasted 20 minutes at most, then  he was back with us, ready to go…but did not want to do anything. He was loud enough to wake the whole campground. I guess it was payback for all he other times WE got woken up by other campers’ kids. Still, we felt guilty, so we had breakfast and packed up the tent. We headed to the lake, a nice, beautiful place nearby. Matt rented a row boat to go for what could have been a nice ride, enjoying nature. Keegan complained the whole time, and he whined he wanted to go back to shore almost immediately, so we headed back and drove home.

We were home by 11 am. The whole trip lasted 18 hours! The irony is that afterwards, Keegan said how much fun he had and started asking when we can go camping again and stay longer. Maybe next time we can try for a whole 24 hour. Jokes aside, even if Keegan made it difficult, we will not give up, and we will try again and again, till he is used to it. We all like camping, so this is something we will do again, hopefully soon. Maybe we can try to go with someone else, so he has a friend to play with, and it would make it easier. I sure wish he would not find us so boring he can’t have fun with us alone. (-:

Comments are off for this post