Our first camping trip...

For our first anniversary, we bought ourselves a tent. We got it when I was 38 weeks pregnant, and somehow didn't manage to get around to camping last summer, and decided we weren't going to let another summer pass us by.

So last night we went camping. Steve and Amelia joined us (Suzi, now 36 weeks pregnant opted to stay home and enjoy a quiet night with real sleep to herself). Our friends Todd and Catie, who don't have kids and keep hanging around with those of us who do to remind themselves why they don't, braved the trip as well.

Through a comedy of errors, the site we had reserved at the campgrounds was occupied by someone else when we arrived, so we set off to find another place to camp. We were in Roosevelt National Forest, and figured that we could find some flat ground somwehere to lay three tents. We found a perfect site--way better than the official sites. This one had lots of privacy and even a firepit. Though no toilet.

The evening went smoothly. Good food, beer, and friends. We weren't sure what Naomi would do in a tent with us having literally never slept a moment in our bed (by mutual agreement between us and her). We put her in there and zipped her in. She cried and attempted escape for the first five minutes (see below) and then nothing.

Overnight we were reminded why we don't sleep with her as she wanted to be right in our faces all night, but it was cute once I accepted the fact that sleep would be scarce. We were at 8500 feet with temps dipping into the low 40s, but our tent was plenty warm (the long underwear didn't hurt either).

In the morning we realized we didn't have a skillet for the bacon and pancakes. I probably shouldn't admit to this, but we found a real estate sign to do the trick. Let me defend myself by saying when we decided on this plan, we didn't think we'd destroy both sides of it. Just one maybe. And then put it back. But it didn't seem right to put back like this.

Naomi was completely filthy by the end (if only that kid would walk more), but seemed to have a lot of fun. We definitely plan to do this at least once a summer, now that we know it can be done...