We Went Camping!

We took Tyler camping for the first time 2 weekends ago. We ventured out to Jester Park, our local (20 minutes from home) campground which we love- the site of our engagement and many other great nights- add our first "family" camping trip and this place definitely goes down in the Hockemeyer Family history book.

We didn't camp at all last year...due to Tyler's pending arrival, we weren't sure going into labor in a tent was ideal. Then once he arrived, we weren't sure having a newborn in a tent was ideal either. Hence we have been super excited to get him in a tent since the weather got nice enough and the calendar's stars aligned.

We weren't sure how he would do...so we planned accordingly, as many new parents do. We hemmed and hawed about going. We (or I) overthought it. Then, we went. Prepared of course...2 cars in case one of us had to abandon camp in the middle of the night (yay only being 20 minutes from home), 2 beers per person (instead of the usual amount we'd take camping) again...we assumed we'd be driving home at 2am.

You can't see him, but Tyler is asleep in there!

So, here's the story...Tyler got tired at his regular bedtime, so we put him to bed at 7pm. In broad daylight. In an insanely (overly?) crowded campground. And he slept until 6:30am when he awoke babbling and smiling at us from across the tent.

The list of things that didn't phase him is actually quite impressive:
- crying/screaming kids- who can blame them? who wants to go to bed when there's a campfire and smores
- next campsite over (10 yards from our tent?!)- cars starting with headlights beaming repeatedly into our tent
- Kevin and I getting in and zipping up about 3 layers of tent before shuffling around to get into our sleeping positions about 2 feet from his bed.
- dog barking really really really loud for a really really really long time at 3am. To which people in the campground were literally yelling at each other back and forth from tents far, far away



Basically, Tyler was the champ that he always is. We were over-prepared and over-thought it. Here's to many, many, many more nights of Hockemeyer family camping!

The view of Saylorville from our campsite

Tyler and I checking out the morning view after his first night in a tent