Pre-Camping Trial

We bought a tent and decided to try it out in the yard before we went on any official camping trips.  A few weekends ago we put it up in the yard.  The first night, we all (except Finley) stayed in there, only to have it start raining around 1:00 am.  The rain was so loud on the tent, that it woke Berkeley up and she couldn't go back to sleep so she asked if I'd walk her up to her room so she could sleep in her own quiet bedroom.  I took her upstairs and then went back out to the tent only to find Tom heading upstairs with his own pillow in hand!  He had had enough too.  He had a golf tournament all weekend and he wasn't getting any sleep so he decided to get some sleep in his own bed!  Oliver and I finished out the night in the tent,woke up freezing the next morning and headed into the house to get warm.

The next night, the kids and I headed back out to the tent and they asked if Tom was going to sleep out there.  I gave him a hard time since it was his bright idea to set it up and sleep out there, so he reluctantly grabbed his pillow and headed out.  He made it till about 4 am when a few fishermen were out on the lake talking and he couldn't get back to sleep.  He went back inside to bed.  It was freezing cold again in the morning when the kids and I woke up so we went inside to get warm. 

All in all, it was kind of fun, but cold.  We were glad we put the tent up just so we knew how to do it when we did the "real thing."  The kids had fun and that's all that matters.  Usually we just sleep on the front porch, but since we bought a tent we figured we might as well use it.  It's always a fun adventure for the little ones!  I remember camping in our tent in the back yard when we lived in California.  Those are still fun memories!  I'm happy to do it for my kids so they can experience it too.