Happy Campers

We had the chance to take Sarah on her first camping trip a couple of weeks ago. Our ward had a campout at Bellows Air Force Base, which is right on the beach. We were excited to experience camping in Hawaii for the first time. The only bad part was the 2 days it took to prepare for 1 night of camping. Kelson was in charge of buying the food for breakfast, which meant that I had to go shopping for enough materials to make 150 breakfast burritos and then figure out how to fit it in our refrigerator. It was even more adventurous when we had to fit 2 big coolers, a stroller, our camping gear, the baby, and ourselves all in our Jeep Compass. Its a good thing Kelson is good at tetris. It was a relief when we finally got out of town with paper plates stacked on my lap and a pie precariously perched on the dashboard. It turned out to be a good thing that the plates were on my lap, because they caught the pie when we turned a corner and it slid off its perch. I made an apple cranberry pie, which was delicious, and it even won first place in the pie contest.

We brought our little barbecue with us and made pita pizzas for dinner. They were so good and really easy. We eat very well even when we are not at home.

We had a feeling camping would be right up Sarah's alley.  You mean we never have to go inside? Awesome! We put her to bed in her rock n play, and she slept really well, especially considering that there were screaming children running around the tent until 11:00.

The birds and the children started up again by 5:30, so it was an early morning for all of us, but Sarah was pretty pleased with life.  We enjoyed some delicious breakfast burritos with the ward, packed up the camping gear, and had a fun day at the beach.

 Three days later, Kelson had to go camping again to help out at our ward's girls camp. At the last minute, Sarah and I decided to come along, so we threw the gear back in the car (minus the 150 breakast burritos this time), and headed to Kaneohe Bay after Kelson got off work.

 After we got Sarah to bed, Kelson and I enjoyed making smores over the barbecue.

 This is the view we woke up to in the morning. Not bad, huh?

 I wish I could walk out my front door to this every morning.

Kelson had to be back in town for work the next morning, but we toasted some bagels on the bbq before we left. 

We were even more successful at camping with a baby on the second go around. I think there will be many more camping adventures in our future. There are some very different things about camping in Hawaii compared to what I am used to. For one thing, you are trying to figure out how to stay cool all night rather than trying to stay warm. The other thing is the bugs. Our second campsite was near a swamp and was infested with mosquitos, cockroaches, and centipedes. Gross gross gross. A cockroach fell out of my bedding when I brought it in the house.  Argghhhh! I hate roaches. I suppose there has to be some downside to living in paradise, though. We won't let them stop us from going on more adventures!