Layla's First Camping Trip

This weekend we took Layla girl on her very first camping trip. Real camping too (none of that pansie ass trailer / pop-up camper camping)! ;) We traveled far, all the way to Pike Lake State Park on Hwy 60. This was our attempt at ensuring we had an emergency escape route in case things got hairy with the kids (Mason, who's just over 18 months old) and the Schultz's came along for the experience. Thank God for that strategy, because Saturday afternoon it rained cats and dogs. We decided to pack up only the necessities after the rain hit and head back to the Sherman pad for dinner and clean up, with the intent to go back to the site after the rain. After realizing the rain wasn't going to have mercy on us, we surrendered and took a knee on camping. But, we made it a fun night w/the kids and grown ups at "Camp Sherman". :)

Friday night and Saturday were suuuuper fun... Bless Jason and Jake... they hit the campsite early on Friday afternoon and got everything set up for us so that when the wives and kids arrived we were all set to camp and have fun! Friday night we cooked up some grub, chased the kids around the fire to avoid any charred toddlers, threw the ball for the addict, Hudson, while Marley observed Hudson and relaxed with the humans. The kids had a blast with the glow sticks we brought for them (see video) and loved sitting by the fire with the grown ups. Both kids did fantastic (except for one random outburst from Layla during the night) sleeping in the tents and on Saturday both families (separately, due to conflicting nap times) hit the beach for some fun in the sun. While we were there, Layla lucked out and got to climb into a fire truck and ambulance (there was a family reunion going on and the Hartford Fire Dept came as an event for the day).

Once the beach trip was over, we headed back to the site. The rain started shortly after we got back from the beach, and it was coming down like it hadn't rained in years. When the rain started to creep into our tents, we made the executive decision to bail.

All in all, the trip was a success and I'm looking forward to many more camping trips with our little trooper in the future!

More pictures to come... Blogger is being a jack ass right now (as it always is... does anyone hate Blogger?).