Camping in the great outdoors

I came home from work Thursday morning and this is what I saw... 

 

My boys camped out in the backyard!  Richard and I have been talking about camping lately and I have been campaigning for a larger tent.  Richard thinks this is silly since we have a perfectly good tent already.  I reminded him of how small it was with the three of us in it (Jonah, Richard and I), but he told me I was crazy.  Jonah overheard us and was asking if we could go camping.  He has only been camping one other time and the last time Elijah was camping he was womb bound.  

Jonah had his first real camping trip at Kent Park in Iowa, just west of Iowa City.  I get a little teary eyed just thinking of how great that Park was and how many wonderful memories we have there!  

We went camping with our great friends Clint and Katy for Father's Day.  It was a wonderful time and such a fond memory.  Jonah had a blast and did exceptionally well for being 18 months old.  I was 8 months pregnant with Elijah and did actually enjoy camping because I was able to convince Richard that I needed an air mattress to support my extra weight.  (Normally we just "rough it" with maybe a camping mat, but certainly not an air mattress!) Although, I might need to start thinking of reasons why I would need to use one again since I can't use pregnancy as an excuse!

Richard said the backyard camping trip went very well!  They had a campfire via our well-loved-used-all-the-time-fire-pit compliments of our closest friends in Iowa City!  The had s'mores of course, crawled into their sleeping bags and slept under the stars.  I was a little worried the boys wouldn't be warm enough, but Richard reassured me they were fine in their fuzzy zip-up pjs and sleeping bags.  

I am looking forward to camping more with them this summer and hoping this is the beginning of many fond camping memories for them.