A campin' we went.....

This past weekend was one Ciera was anticipating for weeks....everyday for the past 2 weeks I heard "are we going camping tomorrow?", it made me say many times to myself "why did I tell her so far ahead of time, have I not learnt my lesson on that yet???!!!!"

Ciera LOVES camping, her first camping trip (a one night experiment) a year after she was home (so at age 2 and a bit) did NOT go well, she hated sleeping anywhere that was not home, not to mention that it rained ALOT that night and our brand new tent leaked ALOT (my niece joked that it was a good thing our air mattress's could float), but that aside she did not really enjoy it. Flash forward to camping trip #2, she LOVED it....and a hopefully lifelong love of camping was born. (we got a different tent that does not leak!!)

For the past 3 years we have done what is now an annual weekend camping trip with some friends, there are 8 kids and 12 adults and we get 5 sites...the kids have a blast....it's different from home. When we are camping Ciera gets some relative freedom to run across the road and see friends, she knows she has to tell me where she is and she's pretty good about that now and I can rest easy knowing that there is at least one parent on whichever site she is on and I know they will look out for the kids, just as I do when they are with me. Ciera also LOVES to wash the dishes when we are camping.....she loves to make lots of bubbles....so much so that I am sure I tasted Dawn in my tea on Sunday morning, but I am certainly not going to discourage that behaviour! Sunday morning I started the dishes and she stopped playing and ran over to me and was quite ticked that I started them without her, one of the other moms was amazed when she heard Ciera say "but I wanted to do the dishes"

This year we also had a small "miracle", actually 2.....

1. it didn't rain
2. we didn't freeze

It was quite warm and it was a very nice change from sleeping in fleece, a sleeping bag and 3 blankets!!! We were able to get in the water at the lake and splash in the waves without running quickly for our towels to wrap around us when we got out.

It amazes me how a weekend of camping feels like a week away, I love the quiet and the calm of it....no where to go or be at a specific time, we eat at odd hours and whenever and it's just so very peaceful. I find I have to tell myself to walk slower as I find myself walking briskly to the playground or to get water.

My plan is that as the kids get older our big summer vacations will be camping...I want to drive out east....PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and as far west as I think we can handle on a drive!! I'd love to go north too and into the States. So loving camping will be a necessity...where else can you get accommodations for $35.00 a night with a spectacular view of what seems like a gazillion stars.

Ciera was so sad to come home on Sunday....she was very upset leaving Port Burwell she asked "can we go camping after swimming lessons tomorrow?" "no honey we can't mommy needs to go to work" she then said "but I love camping, it's so much more fun than daycare or high school" High school? Where on earth did that come from, she's only 5!!!!!

Let's hope that child # 2 enjoys it as much as child #1!!!!