Camping

I thought I'd write up our adventure we had last weekend. There was a
conference talk in this last conference about how we should spend our
money on things that really matter, like making memories with our
families instead of toys. I thought that made sense and I wanted to
make sure that we made an effort to make some good memories with Abby
now that she's getting older and is almost to the age where she can
remember stuff. So...with that in mind, I suggested to Adam that for
our birthdays this year, instead of getting each other movies and CDs,
that we spend a certain amount on camping gear and go on a camping
trip. We've been wanting to go camping for a while, but we didn't have
a tent and could never justify buying one. Adam got on Craig's List
and found a great 2-room, barely-used tent for $30. He went out and
also bought a small stove, an air mattress and a Princess sleeping bag
for Abby. Abby was absolutely thrilled. She was so dang excited to
sleep in a tent with her princesses. We took advantage of a rare
Saturday night off for me and went south about an hour and a half to
Hocking Hills to a little camp ground that was beautiful. We had a
little secluded area in the trees and didn't hear too much from our
neighbors. It was a gorgeous weekend weather-wise. The temperature was
probably around 80, it was a little humid, but not bad, and sunny and
nice all weekend. We got down there Saturday afternoon, set up camp
and set out to go hiking. Abby was disappointed because she wanted to
go to bed right away in her own little room in the tent with her
sleeping bag. So she sulked and pouted and was generally grouchy. Then
she saw the playground at the campsite and wanted to go on the slides
and swing and whined and whined about that. We got her into the car
amid much grumbling and complaining and headed out to Old Man's Cave.
We told Abby that we were going to see a really cool cave like in
Aladdin and we could go in it and look for Pocahontas. She liked that
idea. Little did we know, that a cave 'round these parts just means a
big hole-like thing in the ground that we hiked down into and around.
Like a mini canyon. So the whole time we're hiking, we're thinking
that we're going to get to this awesome cave any minute, and then
we're back where we started from with no cave in sight. When we
realized that we got to the top and what we were just in was the
"cave", we turned to Abby and said, "Wasn't that a really cool cave?
Neat, huh?" She took it all in stride and was a good sport about it.
Then said, "I'm tired. Can we go back to the camping place and go to
bed?" Sigh.... So we headed back and Adam took her to the playground
while I stayed at our site with Molly and read. Nice. We cooked up
some brats for dinner and Abby ate her bread hotdog. (Hotdog bun) Abby
was so excited to go to bed in her new sleeping bag that she wasn't
really interested in the s'mores so we got her changed, washed up and
put her to bed. After about five minutes, she started complaining from
inside the tent about how she was scared and lonely and didn't want to
be there and wanted to go home and she didn't like camping, etc. We
got her up and let her hang out with us until it got dark then we gave
her a flashlight and put her to bed again. She fell asleep eventually
and Adam and I stayed up and watched Alias on our portable DVD player
while Molly slept in Adam's arms. We ate lots of s'mores, toasties
(toasted sandwiches with applesauce, cinnamon/sugar and a marshmallow
in them) and RPM before feeding Molly one last time and heading to bed
ourselves. Molly fell right to sleep and didn't bother our neighbors
too much. Abby woke up with the crows at 5am and cried for us, waking
Molly up. Adam got Molly a bottle really quickly and I reached through
to Abby's "room" and dragged her on our bed with us. We talked for a
while and all eventually fell back asleep on our little air mattress.
Even Molly. We woke up around 8:30, cooked a nice breakfast then
packed up the car. Abby was so grouchy and snotty the whole morning.
She wanted to go home. She wanted to play on the slide and swings. She
wanted to eat some more. She wasn't hungry. She was thirsty. It went
on and on and on. We got her and Molly all packed up in the car and
headed out to do some more hiking. We went to Cedar Falls-a little
waterfall in a gorgeous setting. Abby looked for Ariel in the water
and for Pocahontas in the little caves that were in the rocks. She and
Adam took their shoes off and went wading in the water. When we got
back up to the car, we told Abby that it was time to go home, thinking
she'd finally be happy because she had been asking to go home all
weekend, but she said, "I don't want to go home. I want to keep
camping." I think she just wants to be difficult. We can't win with
her. Anyway, that was our weekend! Despite Abby's grumbliness and
snotty attitude, we had a lot of fun. We're thinking that we should go
with friends next time so Abby has someone to play with. Good times.