Camping

The weekend before last we embarked on our first camping trip as a family of three. Matt loves camping and I enjoy it as well, but would prefer to sleep in my own bed or really just any bed at all. Before Claire was born we enjoyed camping together and have great memories of camping with friends, family and just on our own. This photo was taken during a camping trip in Banff, at Two Jack Lake, three years ago. 

Matt has been very excited to start camping with our little family but I, on the other hand, have been a little nervous about what camping with Claire would entail. I had many worries as to where and how she would sleep, how many times and how early she would be waking up and just her general well-being, as camping can be somewhat unpredictable. I completely refused to go camping last year because the thought of waking up to breastfeed multiple times at night in our tiny tent was just too much for me to handle, but this year (after much convincing by Matt and the promise that we would go to Bird's Hill campground, only about 20 minutes from our house, and could go home at any point if things weren't going well) I decided to give it a try. 

As it turns out Claire is very much like her father and absolutely loves camping.

She loved getting there, exploring the site and trying out our new camping chairs with daddy. She loved being outside and ended up completely putting my sleeping worries to rest by going down without any crying and sleeping through the night right until her normal wake up time! (I was completely shocked and spent most of the night lying awake, waiting her for to wake up and start crying. Matt was not surprised at all and just said that he knew she would do well.) 
Claire loves being outside and spent the majority of her time finding leaves and animals to look at around the site. I think her favourite part was having the undivided attention of both her parents, as the computer stayed at home and there was a "no cell phone" rule put into place. 

She loved leading Matt around the campsite and watching him make use of the camping stove which led to a very special camping time-out because she wouldn't stop touching the nobs on it. This was a rare kind of time-out not only because it was done while camping but because it was captured on film.

After that, Claire enjoyed her first camping breakfast of blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs. It seemed a little lost on her though because she mostly just ate the same cereal she eats the majority of mornings at home. Her favourite part about breakfast was definitely her very first juice box.

She drank one sip of juice, cringed at its sweetness and then decided that the straw was just about the best toy ever and began flicking juice all over the place. 
After breakfast we headed to the beach. Both Matt and I love swimming so we were relieved when she was also a huge fan of the water. It was so much fun to watch as she practiced kicking and putting her face in the water but got a little tricky when her little teeth were chattering and her lips started turning blue but she refused to come out of the water without a lot of screaming and flailing (unlike the time-out there is not photo record of this). 

We enjoyed sitting on the beach for a while teaching Claire to build sandcastles. Mostly she just likes moving sand from one thing to another and flinging it around with her little shovel.

All in all, our first camping trip as family of three went unbelievably well and we are excited for many more camping trips to come.