We decided to go camping this last weekend.Yeah!!! Our dear friends Paul and Nicole, and their 3-year-old daughter Georgia decided to join us in this fun. We were lucky enough to borrow a camper from another friend. This meant access to a air-condition, shower, toilet, refrigerator...and try beds!!! Total luxury!!!!! The daddies were supposed to sleep outside in a tent. It took us about a day to load the camper. You would have thought we are leaving for a 2 week trip - not a 2 night outing.
And so the story begins...
Everyone arrived Friday at lunchtime at Hickory Hills campground in Wisconsin. The parents set up camp, and everyone had a really fun day a the beach. Of course the kids had not napped and at around 5-6pm they started to get a bit cranky. The adults thought : yeah, a whole evening without kids!!! So wrong!
The 3-year-old decided she wanted to go home. She had no intention of sleeping in a camper. The 2-and 4-year-old did not show any interest in sleeping yet and kept peeping out of the camper window. So their parents decide to get them up again and let them run off a bit more steam. They also got to eat a couple more roasted marshmallows (which in Lillian's case was probably a bad idea). At about 8:30 pm the mommies tried the whole going to bed scenario again. The 3-year-old did fall asleep eventually. The 4-year-old wanted to go to sleep, but his 2-year-old sister was bouncing up the walls (overtired + roasted marshmallows...dah). It did not help that they both had to sleep in one bed. At about 9:30pm the mommies were sick of being eaten up by a million chicken size mosquitoes and decided to join their munchkins. One mommy(myself) cramped herself next to the 2-and 4-year-old (which were both still awake). The 2-year-old kept pocking her mommy in the face until the daddies came to bed. They had decided to also sleep in the camper. One Daddy(Andrew) somehow cramped himself next to the 2-year old, the 4 year old and the mommy. They slept opposite ways (I had Andrew's feet in my face all night). After a couple screaming episodes the 2-year-old fell asleep.
So imagine inside one camper there was one full size bed with 2 adults + a 2-and 4-year-old, one twin bed with 2 adults and one twin bed wit one 3-year-old( I don't know how she got that gig). Shortly after midnight everyone was surprised to hear lightening, thunder and rain. They did NOT expected this kind of weather that night. It turned out to be quite a storm. One poor daddy(Paul) was sent into the pouring rain to save children's books, toys... It rained until early morning. Nobody(other than the children) was able to sleep. The kids woke up somewhat chipper and of course hungry at 6-7am. The mommies and daddies were so tired after that night that not even a huge pot of coffee could help them. The campground situation was not much better. The mosquito tent was broken by the storm and the camping area resembled a swamp. Mommies and daddies had enough. The idea of a hot(92 degrees), muggy, wet, muddy, mosquito, no sleep, whiny kids day totally turned them of. They packed up their camp stuff and were home before lunchtime.
And that is our 24 hour camping trip. We still had lots of fun and lots of laughs. We are not discouraged and will be trying this in the next couple months again.
I also have to add at this point that it all was for the better good. Lillian woke up on Saturday night with a fever of 103 degrees. I could not imagine spending a night with a miserable, sick 2 year old toddler in a camper with 6 more individuals.
