Miserable

Miserable pretty much describes our first camping trip as just a family.

When we got married, we had a camping shower thrown by my parent's Supper Club group (a group that has dinner every month together and goes camping every summer) where we got all the gear we could ever need to start camping as a family. Well, it's all been sitting in our storage unit since then, just waiting to come out for it's maiden journey. We've been camping several times since then, but it's been in an rv or with other people where we haven't needed our stuff. So, we decided to head up to the beach for our first family camping trip.

I tried to have EVERYTHING thought through and all ready for Andrew (who grew up with his idea of camping as staying in a hotel that doesn't put a mint on your pillow) so that he would enjoy it and not get frustrated. I actually think I did a good job and we didn't have any problems in that regard. I had seen in the forecast that there were going to be some thunderstorms for a few hours after we got there, but figured we could just go over to the cheese factory...no biggie. What's a little rain to an Oregonian? Besides, after that it was supposed to be sunny the rest of the time.

Well, we got there and arrived to pouring rain that lasted through the night. Not a good start to our trip, but still optimistic, I convinced Andrew to help me set up the tent. So, we have a huge tent that I love because there is lots of room for all of us, the pack-n-play, our bags, and still some room for the kids to play. But...it is a hard tent to get up. Add on the fact that Andrew has never set up a tent, it's pouring rain, and that one of our tent poles broke (thank you duct tape), and it all adds up to one bad experience. Andrew gave up on it after about five minutes and said we were leaving, so I went over to some neighbors in their rv and asked for help. They joyfully agreed and came over and saved us. They helped us get our tent up and were my angels. But by this time, the inside of our tent was soaked, but fortunately I had packed enough towels to dry it out, so we survived. By this point, Andrew (who I really do love dearly) was pouting in the car saying he wasn't going to get out for the whole time. Mind you, it was raining, and getting muddy, but wasn't that cold and was still fun for the boys. So the boys and I walked around the campground, playing in every puddle, finding every drop of mud, and having a ball. We came back to Andrew still in the car, who had already gone through all the beer I brought for both of us. :) haha. I got the boys ready for bed and had a campfire with Andrew (who I had coxed out of the car for a few minutes) The night ended up fine, and we slept in the tent all together. :)

Ok, I need to summarize a little now, but pretty much, after some hard work of "remodeling" our campsite the next day (I hauled bags and bags of sand from the beach to our muddy campsite to make it useable for the boys), a little sunshine, and a little better attitude from Andrew, we ended up having a fun time, and I think we might do it again...just not in the rain:) I tell this story because of it's humor, not at all because I am mad at Andrew...it was funny, not frustrating. I told him that years from now when we are camping pros, we will look back on this story and laugh. The camera didn't even make it out of our car, but Andrew took a few pics on his iphone, I'll post them up soon. You can see how wet it was the first night!