Bryon and I decided to take Rylan on his first camping trip last weekend. We went to Farragut State Park in Idaho. We finally got a tent big enough to fit the two of us plus Rylan and his portable crib plus our dog Libby and her crate. We even had extra room! Initially, we were somewhat hesitant to attempt camping due to the fact that it is hard to find somewhere for Rylan to crawl and play around other than on dirt and rocky ground. Considering that all he wants to do these days is crawl and explore, that posed to be a potential problem. We were also a little worried about how he'd sleep in the tent. We've heard all the horror stories from other parents about how they had to pack up in the middle of the night because their child wouldn't sleep and they were screaming and waking up the whole camp ground, etc. But even after hearing all of this and discussing our worries, we were still determined to give it a go. Fortunately, Rylan loved every minute of our trip! He is so happy when he is outside and would much rather be outside any day, rain or shine. The only challenge of the trip was packing and unpacking all of our gear while trying to watch Rylan and make sure he didn't eat something yucky (he has a tendency to find random things on the ground and shove them in his mouth before we can grab them from him) or fall and get hurt, or get bored and start fussing, etc. However, we managed to get the job done with baby intact. Believe it or not, we're even excited to go again!!!
Rylan and Libby enjoyed hanging out together in our campsite. Libby feels pretty special when she gets her own chair too.
Rylan loved crawling around in the tent. "What a cool fort, Mom! I'm king of Columbia (hence the brand name of the tent)!"
We discovered during our trip that Rylan loves hot dogs. We roasted them over the fire and thought we'd give him just a of couple of bites. Well, those of you that know Rylan know that a couple of bites just won't do it...he'd want to eat the entire hot dog. And, you guessed it, he did. Next time we might need to hide our hotdogs!
Our campsite was very big and private. There were several trails in the woods behind our spot and we had fun exploring them.
Rylan has a love for trees. He insisted on touching every tree we walked by. He liked to feel the bark. You can only imagine how long it took us to hike anywhere since the trails were obviously surrounded by trees.
"Ahhh Dad, this is the life! Oh look, another bird!"
The campground is on Pend Oreille Lake. It is huge and very deep. We watched many boats go by and even saw a submarine.
The nights were pretty chilly. We were worried that Rylan wouldn't stay warm at night. In fact, Bryon and I both froze even though we were wearing sweatshirts and fleece pants and bundled in warm sleeping bags. We thought for sure Rylan would wake up cold and have a hard time falling back asleep. To our surprise, he slept much better than we did and didn't even make a peep all night! I'm so proud of him! He's such a trooper and is so adaptable. We can take him anywhere and he does great. We'll be camping a lot more in the future!
Running along the beach was quite a thrill for Rylan. He searched for sticks and rocks along the way. He enjoyed running barefoot in the sand too.
Rylan explored every inch of our camp site. He found lots of bugs, flowers, and more rocks and sticks. There was never a dull moment!
We rode a ferry boat across the river to the campground. We couldn't get out of our cars, but we enjoyed looking at the water, boats, and the beautiful scenery along the way.
Rylan got really excited when we set up the tent. He seemed to think it was a big play fort. He even liked sleeping in it because he could look out and see the moon at night.
