Camping…well, sort of

On Saturday night, we decided we were going camping. “In the mountains?”, you ask. “The beach perhaps?” No, no, no, no, no, no. We were REALLY roughing it and camping out in the backyard. See, we were supposed to go to the beach but that fell through so in order to experience some kind of vacation, we were going to pitch tents, eat outside, sleep in sleeping bags, the whole nine! One catch. I had never done it before. Well, that shouldn’t be a big deal, right? I mean we were right in the backyard. Friends, it was a bigger deal than I gave it credit for because I didn’t make it outside for longer than 3 and a half hours. OK, you can stop laughing now. Stephanie! I can hear you over here……

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a high maintenance kind of girl. AT ALL. I do have a ferocious fear of public bathrooms though but that’s it. I think. Anyway! The kids were gung-ho about it and I was too. We had raked off an area to set up camp and Sean had gotten out his camping stove and all the associated gear. Here’s what our set-up looked like:

All was well. After days and days of sweltering southern heat the air was finally cool and crisp and glorious. I had on long pants and a light jacket. It was heavenly! We had cooked hot dogs over the open flame, roasted marshmallows, made s’mores (which I don’t really like), told ghost stories, and we had settled into our respective tents for the night. Lily, the puppy was sleeping in the boys’ tent and Melvin was parked outside of ours, looking ever watchful. Sean and I had snuggled up when suddenly, Melvin tore off into the far reaches of our yard barking his head off which set Lily off. She thinks she’s so tough! Evidently there wasn’t anything for Melvin to kill because he and Lily came back up to the camp. We put Lily in our tent and Melvin lay back down outside. I had just dozed off to sleep when again Melvin went jumped up growling fiercely, Lily did the same – on my head.

At this point, I was done. It was 12:30 and all I wanted to do was get a good night’s sleep. I wanted to go inside and sleep in my own bed and I didn’t want to leave the rest of my family outside without me. Silly? Maybe. But I was tired and not thinking straight. I thought I would have to sleep indoors with the doors unlocked and I have OCD about checking the locks on the doors so that wasn’t going to work. I demanded that Sean help me cart the kids inside. Needless to say everyone was very unhappy with me for a while the next day. We’ll have to try it again. I just don’t know how I’ll make it though the night out there. But the kids were so disappointed that I have to get beyond thinking about myself and think about them.