The Griswalds Go Camping!

Ok..maybe the title is a little dramatic, but that is completely how we felt on our way home at 9:30 at night last night. Our Saturday began GREAT! The boys helped Mommy do some food shopping for our trip, pick up a few more donations for the charity scrapbooking event she is planning, we had lunch, and then packed up the car. We dropped our favorite beagle off at a friend's house (thank you Chambers family!) and head north to Pedernales Falls State Park. It is a gorgeous park on the Pedernales River about 1.5 hours from our house just outside of Johnson City. Once we made it to the park we set up camp. William really enjoyed helping Daddy pitch the tent, well he probably enjoyed beating things with one of the poles, which made him enjoy pitching the tent :-)

After the camp was ready to go we decided to head towards the river. We really enjoyed a nice, leisurely walk down to the river and we even got to use the child carrier backpack we borrowed from another friend (thanks Beely Family!!). We were SO proud of William at the river. When we first got to the river all he wanted to do was through rocks into it, and that was a lot of fun! Then he grabbed Daddy's hand and started heading across the river. We were at what is called "Trammel's Pass" and it is a natural rock pathway across the river. The boys headed across while Mommy stayed behind to take pictures. The skipped rocks together and just played near the river. It was really a sweet sight to watch...a Daddy and his son by the river. William decided that he was up for more of a challenge on the way back, and basically got pretty deep in the water. This was AMAZING! At one point he was chest deep in water (while holding Daddy's hand the whole time) and walked back to the other side. He was SO proud of himself, and we were so proud of him for being a strong, brave boy!

We hiked back to camp and Mommy started a yummy dinner of taco soup and homemade guacamole. It was really good!! We read William stories, watched a beautiful blue bird in camp (which Will promptly chased after), played with bubbles, and observed a large amount of vultures circling and swopping down near our campsite. Colby and William investigated and found that several campsites away the people had left, and left all of their food at the site. Hence the vultures. I guess they got a good meal out of it! So you must be thinking to yourself, well I don't see any Griswald like features to this story, what could possible go wrong?! Well like all good National Lampoon Griswald family stories something ALWAYS happens..

As bedtime approached William kept asking to go in "Momma's car". We would say "No bud, we are sleeping here tonight. Won't that be fun?!" To which he would quickly reply "NO..Momma Car...Momma Car." So we decided to take a family walk around the area before bedtime to get the little one all nice and relaxed before he needed to go to sleep. Unfortunately when it was time to go to bed William had a level 5 meltdown (on a scale of 5). "Momma's car! Momma's car!" He would shout over and over again. Colby laid him down in his pack n play which only made William more upset. He even tried to climb out of the pack n' play. Colby and I were prepared for the fact that he might not want to camp, and we were ok with that, but we weren't not prepared for this....

As Colby is very calmly trying to pack a few things up while Sara was trying to get Will to calm down and try to go to sleep at camp William kept screaming "Momma's car! Momma's car! Momma's Car!" At one point he saw the car light on (Colby was putting stuff in it) and he jumped off Sara's lap and headed for the car. As Mommy ran behind him to try and help him navigate the darkness William slipped and hit his head on the open car door. So now the crying REALLY began, and a nasty looking bump. At this point we decided we should pack it in and head home. Nothing like a traumatic first adventure in camping. After Will stopped crying we put him in his car seat where he requested his bear, blanket, and milk. He sat there crying to go and saying "Ouch" while rubbing his head. We headed on down the road back to Cibolo, and Mommy and Daddy decided to sleep in his room due to the head bump. It was a long night, but everyone is better this morning.

All in all we had a FANTASTIC first camping trip! We plan on slowly getting him use to camping by camping in the back yard and getting him use to sleeping in a regular bed. One day he will enjoy it, and for now we will take some great day trips to the Texas State Parks!

Enjoy some pictures we took while we were there.

Love to all,
The Tates