Into The Wild

So we sort of went camping this weekend.

The entire trip lasted approximately 15 hours, but overall I would call it a success.

Besides the fact, of course, that I don't want to share a bed with my daughter again anytime soon.

Don't worry, Stella made sure she had the essentials: rain boots and a Lion King purse.

Lion King purse was actually courtesy of our campfire approved dinner from Subway.

Sometimes roughing it simply means sleeping in a tent for a night and using the nastiest bathrooms known to man.

The reason for our little family adventure was our ward's annual camp out.

After five years of trying to decide if we should buy a tent we decided to just do it and head for the mountains.

Wait, Ohio doesn't have mountains.  Instead we headed 10 miles down I-270 to one of the campgrounds located inside a local metro park.

Yes, there was a Walmart and a suburban neighborhood only one mile outside of the gate, but it felt like the heart of wilderness and that is what matters.

And even though it rained from 2am until 2pm the day of the trip I knew we were going, because by golly we were setting up that new tent of ours.

So glad we did.

The rain didn't make a comeback, although there was still plenty of moisture in the air, on the ground, and consequently finding it's way onto Stella's clothing.

Her one size too big rain boots didn't make walking as easy as it could be so the girl and the wet grass met several times throughout our time in the wild.

It didn't phase her one bit and she loved gathering sticks, leaves, and any other treasure that could be carried in her purse.

My dear mother felt little sympathy towards my night spent with a toddler in a tent, and while it didn't go perfect it actually went better than I imagined.

Especially for being 8 months pregnant.

We decided to get the full camping experience and went ahead and brought our futon mattress from home to use as our bed.

It worked out quite nicely until about 2am when our daughter decided she needed her space.

For what felt like the next 4 hours of my life (although, I am sure it wasn't more than one) we did our best to keep her warm as she crawled in and out of the blankets, contorted her body into positions that were not comfortable for anyone in the bed, and talked in her sleep.

A lot of the time I was laughing at her chattering while finally realizing why she can be found in the strangest positions during the night, but after a little while I just wanted to sleep again.

Sleep did come and thankfully I didn't have to leave the tent for any pregnancy potty breaks either.

A true pregnancy miracle, right?

And while most mornings I wake up feeling like an 80 year old woman, yesterday morning I think I felt somewhere between the ages of 95 and 100 so you could say I was grateful for our short stay in nature.

That night as I was lying in our tent singing my sweet girl to sleep I felt so happy.

I was so happy that the little blue eyed, blond haired beauty cuddled up to me was mine.

I was so happy that the guy outside the tent tending to the fire and wearing his head lamp was mine.

I was so happy that we could share an experience as simple as setting up a tent and playing outside together.

It was a sweet moment for me.

P.S. Did I mention our tent has a porch? Yeah, we were the envy of the neighborhood for sure.