Yes, You Can Survive Camping with Toddler Twins

We actually had Pierce camping when he was only about 9 months old.  We took a road trip up north and hit some state parks in Michigan and Indiana for a week.  Everything is a little different with twins, though, so we've held off camping overnight with them.  Finally, we felt ready to take the plunge.  We have a camping site located on top of a mountain on our property, and we decided to head up one Saturday night when the weather was mild. 

After a steep 1.25 mile hike to the top, Pierce set to work helping his Dad pitch the small tent.  We decided to pitch our big tent for me and the twins (so they could have lots of space) and a smaller tent for Pierce and Paul.  Next time around I feel more confident that we can just use the one large tent.

I brought up large cars for every child (each with a squeaky frog to ride inside) and these were cherished and pushed over rocks and through dirt all evening.

Cort and Reid don't have shirts on because although we brought up a large jug of water, we forgot to bring cups to drink from!  So, very thirsty from their hike up, they both managed to saturate their shirts while trying to drink water from a huge jug.

First corn of the season.  You really can't beat corn roasted over open fire.  It takes about an hour, but is so divine.

Pierce hangs out in the tent.

Paul told me to get junk food at the grocery store for our campout, so I bought two cans of Pringles as a special treat.  I find it hard to believe, but the Pringles were all gone by the next day.

 Mmmmm, corn on the cob - 

And fire roasted hot dogs too!

Of course, you're not really camping unless you have s'mores.

And then it was bedtime.  We used an inflatable twin mattress and I put Reid on one end and Cort on the other.  This worked just fine.  Except they would roll over in the middle of the night, fall off, and get mad. 

The other drawback was the Reid had a cold (or allergies?) and he started coughing at bedtime.  And he coughed.  And coughed.  And coughed.  For six hours straight.  I debated what to do.  Should I put him on my shoulders and hike down our steep mountain in the middle of the night?  What if I fell?  Was he sleeping through it?  And once I got down to the house, all I could really offer him was honey and a humidifier for comfort.  Which isn't much.  In the end, we toughed it out. 

Around 2 am, the coughing finally subsided and we all managed to get some sleep.  I even dreamt of Civil War soldiers (one on horseback, 3 on foot) standing and conversing in the midst just outside my tent.  So weird.

I suspect there will be many more campouts in our future this summer.  Just not when Reid has a cold!

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