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Monday, June 28, 2010

Camping in June

Yep, it's that time of year again...Camping season for the Mason's. Jake & I have always loved camping in the summer season and we do it a few times a year. Our first of the year camping trip, we joined forces with friends Evan, Stephanie and their son Liam at Folsom Lake. It was Aiden & Kyra's first time camping. And it was Stephanie & Liam's first time camping too. When I asked Stephanie at the end of the camping trip would she do it again and she happily said YES!!! Woo Hoo. She also said it has it's pros and cons; cons being the bugs and Liam falling many times and getting scratches on his poor little legs. Pros, spending time with friends and really getting to know each other better.

The morning of our decent started off pretty good. By afternoon Jake & I were both stressed out. We had every intention of leaving the house by 2pm to get to our site around 2:30 or 3:00 and as in usual Mason style...we were late! Imagine that! LOL.

Here is how MY afternoon went. I went out the side garage door to throw out a dirty diaper in the trash, try to get back in the house throught the inside door to get back in the house and it is locked. So I'm standing there trying to think of something to do of how to get back in. Hey, I have my cell phone on me I can just call Jake and he can answer it and come let me in. Meanwhile upstairs Jake is showering and can't hear the phone. I was soo hoping he would hear it. I called him at least 4 or 5 times with no success. So then I decide to open the big garage door so I could go to the front door to ring the doorbell for Aiden to come down and let me in. Aiden knows how to open the baby gate so I was hoping this would be my saving grace. Umm..yeah right. The garage door is locked down tight with the safety lock and I didn't notice till it was too late. The door tries to go up and buckles under the pressure of the security rod and bends in the middle and one of the glass windows break. I'm there a total of at least 20 minutes in a hot garage and can't get out. There is glass scattered on the floor of the garage and on the new car (luckily nothing happened to the car). So I sit on the freezer and just wait patiently for Jake to finally get out of the shower and come get me. Meanwhile I'm posting on Facebook my dilemma. I even have offers from friends to try to get Jake's attention. LOL. Is this the end of my story...OH NO, not even close. A little bit later I hear some movement in the hall by Jake's office. That has to be Jake. I make one final attempt to call him, he answers and I tell him to come to the small garage. He comes out sees me sitting on the freezer and asks what is going on, he looks over my shoulder at the broken glass and bent garage door. His face turns white and I could just tell that it was another added thing he had to fix before we left for camping. I felt soo bad. I told him what had happened. In my haste to tell him what had happened I failed to catch the door before it slammed shut and yes then at that moment we were both locked in the garage. He then takes a broom and knocks off the glass from the broken window, let's us both out the garage. I immediately go to the front door ringing the doorbell and calling Aiden's name. She's yelling back "Mom, someone is at the door". I'm yelling as loud as I can so she could hear me "Aiden it's me Mommy, come to the front door and let us in" and she screams "WHAT?" Jake walks over and opens the front door..it was unlocked. WTHeck. I can laugh about it now. :o) What an ordeal.

After our ordeal we continued to get our things together and head out the door for our camping adventure. We drove to Folsom Lake, parked the truck & boat in front of our site and started unloading. Luckily our campsite wasn't too far from our parking space so we left the girls in the truck and ran the air conditioner and put in a movie for the girls to watch while we unloaded everything. It was nice because we were still able to unload and keep our eyes on the girls at the same time. Jake set up the tent while I organized the camping gear near our table. We were finally all set up and we let the girls out of the truck. Kyra being at the age of curiosity she wanted to first go exploring around the site. Our site was kind of awkward, we had to set up the tent on a little hill. Jake being the clever guy he is used an ax to makeshift a little step to get up inside our tent in the dirt. Very clever that man!!! The girls went inside and loved being in the tent. The first thing Kyra did was jump on Aiden's air mattress.

Evan, Steph & Liam arrive around 7:30 and we had dinner. It had been a long day for everyone. We all turned in around 9. Since our campsites were kind of far from each other we all turned in at the same time and didn't have Smores'. Kyra absolutely hates the port-a-crib. She cried the second we put her in it for bed. The last time we used one she fell asleep not too long after. We were hoping this would be the same way but not a chance. She cried and cried and cried. It was getting later and later. We took her out put her in bed with us and all she wanted to do was play so we put her back in her crib. Yeah...no way Jose. She cried again. By this time it was 11pm and she was still wide awake. I was scared that Kyra screaming was going to keep the other campers awake and we'd be the talk of the campsites. We took one last feeble attempt to put her back in our bed and at last she finally fell asleep at midnight. Neither of us got a good nights sleep but Kyra sure did. She didn't wake up till 9am.

Breakfast on Saturday was quite yummy. Jake made pancakes and turkey sausage. YUM-O. After the breakfast dishes were cleaned up we all got ready and put our swimsuits on we headed to the lake for some boating fun. It was so much easier getting the boat in the water this time than it was our first time boating with the girls. Evan, Steph, Liam, Aiden & Kyra stayed to the side until we got the boat in the water. We tooled around for awhile. Found a nice cove in the shade and ate our lunch and went swimming. We had so much fun!!! The kids seemed to enjoy themselves.

We tooled around some more on the boat and was heading inland when Kyra & Liam fell asleep on us so we opted to let the kids nap on the boat instead of heading back to camp for naps. Aiden does well w/o naps but she took a very, very short catnap. It was getting warm again so we opted to find another cove and go swimming. I was hoping Kyra would stay asleep while I went in but she woke up as soon as the boat stopped moving. Liam on the other hand slept for a little while longer. I think the motion of the waves really keeps Kyra sleeping. By the time we headed back to camp we decided it was too hot to cook on the grills and since we were close to some restaurants we would just go grab a bite to eat. We went to Round Table pizza and had pizza and salad.

The evening was warm. I tried putting Kyra down for bed and she wasn't having any part of it. I seriously think she doesn't like the port-a-crib. Jake knew I wanted to roast some marshmallows so he said he'd take over night duties with Kyra. We had been promising Aiden a smore' since we got there so we had to follow through with our promise. I went down to the firepit at the Evan & Steph's site and chit chatted. I went to take Aiden to the bathroom and Jake was in the car with Kyra who was screaming at the top of her lungs crying. He had the air on and the car running trying to get her to calm down and go to sleep in her carseat. Poor Jake he was again stressed out. I then took over Kyra duty while he went back up to the site to sit down with Aiden & everyone else. I had a talk with Kyra and told her it was night night time. It must have been 10-15 minutes later and she was fast asleep. Jake came down, took her up to our tent, put her in the crib and slept all though the night. She got a really good nights rest then. It is so difficult to figure out what Kyra wants when she's throwing herself and can't use her words to tell you what she does or doesn't want. So difficult indeed. We're looking forward to the time when she uses her words more. Maybe then it won't be so difficult for any of us. Poor Kyra and poor Jake. Kudos to DH for being so calm w/o letting Kyra see how frustrated he was. He's like me when we can't figure it out what it is that she wants or needs. After Jake took Kyra and put her to bed in HER bed he stayed with her. He wasn't feeling well. I went back to have some roasted marshmallows. Aiden sat on Steph's lap and fell asleep. Evan, Steph & I were up till 11:30 talking and sitting by the campfire. It was really nice to finally just sit back and relax awhile.

Sunday woke up to a cool...no warm...no a HOT morning. The temperature was supposed to get into the low 100's. Evan & Steph had breakfast duty that day. Evan & Steph woke up to ants in their food boxes & ice chests unfortunately. The biggest issue they had however was the french toast sticks that they brought got soggy in the ice chest. We did have some yummy scrambled eggs. All in all, it was a good breakfast despite the few setbacks. We packed up the campsites and headed our seperate ways. They were going to go home get some naps in and showers in. We were meeting our friends at the lake for a few hours and then meet up with E&S later that evening for steak, corn on the cob and roasted red potatoes for dinner (the dinner we were to have had to cook on Saturday night). We had a really great time with Evan, Steph & Liam. We are looking forward to our next camp adventure with them in the future.

Kyra is looking at Liam as if to say "How does that work"?
These 2 little characters have a language all their own. It's so fascinating watching them interact with eachother. They are only 3 weeks apart in age.

OMGosh, how can you not fall in LOVE with these 3 cuties. :o)

The rest of our camping trip photos can be viewed on our webshots. Camping Trip.

Our next camp adventure is coming up the weekend of July 9-11. We are going to the coast with our friends Ray, Gail, Robyn & Jim. We're going near Bodega Bay, campground called Salt Point SP.
That should make for a nice weekend. Since we'll be near the ocean we're hoping for cooler weather. We're also hoping this time around Kyra will be somewhat behaved at night. But we're going to do everything we can to figure out how to best make the best of the situation. We're considering just putting her & Aiden in the tent and let her fall asleep where she lays her cute little head. Don't think we'll do the port-a-crib. Wish us luck!!!

Thanks for reading about our latest adventures as a family. See you next blog.

1 comment:

  1. Hope things work out with Kyra and sleeping arrangements. I remember one camping trip where Hannah cried over and over through the night and I thought for sure she was keeping everyone else awake. That wasn't fun.

    One thing I did that helped with the port-a-crib issue (and I don't remember if I did this with both kids or just Hannah): I put her down for her daily nap in the port-a-crib so that she was used to it. Then it was a somewhat familiar thing to her during camping. (The crying issue she had that one time camping was more to do with the cold and/or being at the edge of weaning her, I think.)

    Anyway, sounds like you guys had fun! We're planning some camping this year, too, and it's even easier now that the kids are older. Such a blast!

    -- Teddi

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