The Great Outdoors

It's been a while since we've been camping together as a family. Like, before we were really even a family (remember Moab, K?) The boy scouts and I have been plenty of times, including last week's fiasco on the dunes at Pismo. However, I feel like I have a patriarchal duty to provide my son with every experience the outdoors has to offer, and if I wait until he's a Tenderfoot, well... I fear the worst. He's already afraid of every creeping thing he sees and would rather watch "Anna" (Frozen) than dig holes outside with his dad. Sigh...

So the three of us went camping last night - real, bona fide tarp-and-tent camping in the outdoors! And when I say outdoors, I mean 30 feet out the back door.  It wasn’t what we had in mind when we planned the outing last month, but a promise is a promise. Besides, I had to clean the gear after aforementioned dunes trip. We had a lot of fun setting up our 3-man tent. Caleb claimed his flashlights, I claimed the highest-rated sleeping bag (the gentlemanly thing to do on a hot August night), and Kaylee gathered up some story books and her good sportsmanship.

I don't think we slept more than 5 hours. As it turns out, the excitement and newness of sleeping outside was just unmanageable for our toddler, and he was up all.. night... long. In the end, the only thing that worked was to put as much space between us as this cavernous tent could offer, then take turns sitting watch for the sly little guy to start sneaking his way across the divide. We did conquer, but the battle was hard fought.

The thing with kids is that they don't really sleep in. Oh well... I'd do it all again tomorrow night. That's what dads are for, right?

- J