camping // the boys first time!

we were always pretty daring when it came to doing things when our boys were babies.  our kids have flown countless times, spent a crazy amount of hours in the car on road trips & they've spent more nights in hotels than i even know.  but one thing we were never brave enough to do with babies was go camping.  camping with a newborn?  nope.  with a crawler?  yeah freaking right.  even last summer when elliot was just shy of two years old it wasn't even on the table.

so this was our summer to break them in.

and it turns out they are at the perfect age to take camping.  they LOVED it.  they were giddy about their sleeping bags, they packed their own backpacks full of the things they wanted to bring & were just so excited about the whole idea of it all.  and thank goodness they are both old enough to understand the whole "take your shoes off in the tent & zip it up behind you" thing because my ocd self just doesn't do dirt & bugs in my sleeping bag.  but if i had a penny for every time i reminded them of that i would probably have a dollar.

we camped at oxbow regional park just outside of portland.  it's like twenty minutes from our house & sure your closest couple of camping neighbors are just a stone's throw away but it was just right for our first-timers.  it's right on the sandy river & has plenty of safe water-play river access.  there were lots of woods the boys could safely run through within eyesight of our camp & the wildlife were used to all the people so there were lots of deer sightings.

we had good company (sam's parents, sister & her husband), lots of good food (obviously a given when camping) and amazing weather.  we had so much fun that i've spent a good part of my day looking up tent trailers on craigslist so we could do this kinda thing twice as much with half the work.  hey west coast road trip, we're coming for ya!

so much fun.