Father's Day Camp-out!

Since Josh has been talking about going camping with Elise since before she was born, we thought that Father's day would be the perfect time for her inaugural tent sleeping adventure! We decided to make our first trip an "easy" one, so we headed to a nearby base that has a large wooded car camping area (true meaning = "luxury camping" - air mattress and all!) and set up camp.

Elise always likes the great outdoors, but the difficult part for us was containing her. The good news is that when we car camp we feel free to bring any and all things we MIGHT need, so we had managed to fit in her pack-n-play. That helped for part of the time...and the rest of the time...all I know is that we were all covered in ketchup, mustard and dirt by the end of the night - who knows?!?

Getting Elise to sleep was a little tricky when she could bounce on the air mattress or look up at the starry starry night sky (that sounds too nice, it was actually a kind of city light polluted sky...but, I'm trying to make it sound really woodsy!) The good thing is that once Elise did fall asleep, she managed to sleep until her tried and true waking hour of 6 a.m. (We were pretty sure she'd be up with the rising Japanese sun at 4 a.m., so two "extra" hours of sleep was a nice surprise)

In the morning, she mangled/ate a banana for breakfast, Josh ate a special Father's day charred hot dog, and they shared a piece of cheese. Doesn't get much better than that! Then we packed up camp, took a short little hike and headed home. I, for one, was ready to wash off the bug spray, campfire, ketchup, banana, dirt combo that was starting to take over everything!