Camping.

Okay, we did it. We took Evelyn camping in a tent on Sunday night, and it actually went really, really well! We loaded up the truck and made our way to Ham Lake Campgrounds.

We checked in and got to our camp site at about 4:00 on Sunday afternoon and the adventure began. Our spot, which had a nice view of the lake, was not specifically a "tent" spot, but rather a camper spot, which had it's good things and bad things. Good: Water spout. Bad: Rocky, uneven ground (Remember Andy and I are sleeping on the ground, in a tent.) We made the mistake of assuming the blow up mattress was not needed and just packed some thick blankets. Let's just say I did not sleep so well, on rocks and a hill..... Anyways, we got to our site and set up the tent.

Thank goodness I grabbed a bag of popcorn on the way out the door because Evelyn sat in her carseat, eating popcorn watching us set the darn tent up the entire 20-30 minutes in the blazing

hot sun it took us to do it, all the while the empty, completely shaded site sat empty next to us, but I'm not bitter....

Our adventure began by checking out the beach. The water was really low and the sand on the bottom was like mush and gross on our feet, so we decided to play on shore and the docks instead. (Neighbor's Shady Site Pictured Above)

Beach time didn't last very long, so we decided to go for a walk to the petting zoo. Yes, the Petting Zoo - what campground is complete without one? We went into the office and bought 2 ziploc baggies of corn and went back to "zoo" which consisted of llamas, emus and little goats. Evelyn was so brave and LOVED feeding the goats the corn right from her hand! The emus wouldn't come over, but Evelyn really wanted them to. After the zoo, we went back to camp, grilled some hot dogs and had some dinner, Evelyn was doing so great, not even trying to run away! By 9:00, Evelyn was ready for bed, so the true adventure began. I went in and tucked her in her pack and play and she waved bye-bye like she always does at bedtime. With about 10 seconds of whining, she was quiet, I was so worried she would be afraid and put up a fuss and the whole campground would be so mad because of the screaming baby and they'd kick us out and we'd have to go home. But, obviously, that did not happen. She actually slept through the night! Even with it being cold out and her constantly kicking off her blankets, even with the loons making noise throughout the entire night, even with the insanely bright street light right at the end of our campsite, blaring into our tent, and even with the 12 year old's birthday party at the other end of the camp with 5 screaming girls until 11:45 when Andy finally marched down there and told the dad to shut their kids up (but much nicer, I'm sure.) Who knew night time while camping would be so obnoxious!

The next day, we all got up about 7:00 (once again, neighbors being VERY loud, opening and shutting all types of doors, starting at 6:30, what the heck were they doing??) Breakfast consisted of bananas for Evelyn, pancakes, hashbrowns and eggs! Just because we're outside doesn't mean we can't eat fun food!

Check-out was supposed to be at 1:00, but Andy actually had to go to work, and we were all exhausted so we ended up leaving around 10:30. Evelyn fell asleep in the car (pic of Ev sleeping) and even took a 4 hour nap later, when we got home! Which means I got to take a nap as well! All-in-all, it was a great experience, but the most important lesson here, I think, is that if/when we go camping again with Evelyn, we need to buy a camper! lol