Melanie's first camping trip

Melanie turned exactly 1 month old this past Thursday. To celebrate, we took her on her first camping trip! Some of you may think we are crazy to to camping with a newborn, but what can I say... we love camping! Frankly, we didn't have much choice in the matter anyway, as Isabella has been begging (every day) to go camping. Usually we go camping every other weekend from the end of April until early October every year, but had a 2 month hiatus this year (one month before the birth, one month after). Isabella LOVES camping and was really missing it. She would frequently say things like "Lets go camping tonight" or "When can we go camping?" or she would get on a pretend phone, arrange a camping trip, and inform us "We are going camping in 5 hrs." It was incessant, and truth be told it tickled us that she loves camping as much as we do.

So we packed up our VW camper van, lots of diapers, swaddle blankets, our 2 kids, our dog, and headed out to Camano Island State Park. Once we arrived we popped our camper top, put out some camp chairs, sat back, and remembered why we love camping so much. Big trees, campfires, clean air, it was all wonderful. We were also reminded of how much fun camping is for kids. Isabella finds SO much to do in the woods. First she found a slug - "Look mommy, what's this!!!" She was fascinated by both the slug and his trail of slime, enough so that there were many discussions about and visits to this amazing creature. Then, she proceeded to help her father chop wood. He had a hatchet, and she found her own "hatchet" (a long stick) -



Next, she started searching through the forest for sticks, proudly asserting that she was going to find some trekking poles (for context, she has been obsessed with some trekking poles she saw at REI which we wouldn't buy for her). So she found some sticks, said "These are my trekking poles!" and told us that she wanted to go for a walk. We proceeded to hike down to the beach. Melanie rode in a baby carrier on my belly -



We all had a great time down at the beach. Isabella insisted on stealing John's sunglasses -


And then Isabella and Ellie became completely consumed with playing together. It went like this - Isabella would pick up a rock, throw it in the water, and Ellie would run in after it. Repeat. It didn't matter that each the rock was sinking into the water which was on top of many many rocks (and thus Ellie could never possibly find the rock that was thrown). Regardless, Ellie chased every rock that was thrown and loved it. Isabella never tired of the game either.

Later, we had a campfire. Melanie relaxed in her very first camp chair by her very first campfire.

All in all, it was a great trip. We were wondering how camping with a newborn would be and so this was our test run (in preparation for a longer 5 day camping trip next week). Turns out that it was no problem at all, and we are ready for more. Yay for camping!!!