Let me start this post off by letting you know how incredibly un-seasoned Fraser and I are at camping. The last time I remember camping was when I was still in my single digits, and my parents were in charge of everything. Fraser claims that he camped when he was younger too, but I have seen how Fraser’s family does things… so I’m guessing that there was a camper or two involved on these trips, and gourmet meals being served on the hour. Which really isn’t camping, if you ask me. And this is my blog… so we are asking me. Camping involves tents. And sleeping bags. And Little Debbie snack cakes. In that order.
So, given our combined experiences… we’re actually less experienced than a novice. We’re newborn camping novices.
So, naturally, we decided to take the boys camping… since we’ve never done it and all. And we decided to take the boys camping in the middle of December. When there is this stuff called snow on the ground. We drove up to Mt. Charleston, about an hour and a half out of Las Vegas, and yes… there is snow there.
So we get there around 3:00pm. Which leaves us about 1 hour of daylight to get our tent and campsite set up. Awesome. Luckily, Fraser had reserved the campsite with electricity… so ‘setting up camp’ really just meant plugging in the crock pot of stew he had brought along with us. Do you see what I mean now about how Fraser’s family does things? Mmmmm’kay. So, we got set up. But most importantly, I got the camp site decorated by wrapping some Christmas lights around the fencing near the campfire. It was December, after all. Priorities.
We have our crock pot, our Christmas lights, and a crap ton of sweaters. Oh, and a tent. We should be good, right?
Next on the list. Play with fire. Well, that was next on the boys’ list. I’m pretty sure this was the first time that they have ever seen a camp fire, which makes me disappointed in myself as a parent, but also slightly amused that my little city boys have been so sheltered their entire lives.
Griffin thought that he was Santa because he had a beard. He ‘ho! ho! ho!’ ‘d it up for quite a while.
Right around this point we’re starting to realize that it is getting dark, and cold. Fast. We’re digging through our extra layers, adding hats and mittens, blankets and heavy coats. How can it already be this cold?
But my Christmas lights look pretty, so all is right in my world.
Our fire is blazing, but the temperatures keep dropping… and by now, it’s dark. Like, Blair Witch Project, dark.
Somehow we decide that it is a good idea to change everyone from their layers of clothing into their flimsy-in-comparison pajamas that seemed like a very snug choice of pajamas when I was packing just hours before. We’re all in our jammies and we snuggle into the tent. The boys in their Spiderman sleeping bags, and Fraser and I on top of a mattress that is about an inch thick with layers upon layers of blankets. We do what normal parents of the 21st century do… we turn on the laptop that we had previously loaded with a Christmas movie the boys hadn’t seen. We settle in for the most uncomfortable one and a half hour movie of our lives.
After what seemed like an eternity, the movie ended. We are all miserable. Shaking. Frozen to our cores. But somehow, by the mercy of SweetBabyJustinTimberlake, the boys all fall asleep. Fraser has been able to steal Brody’s sleeping bag, because, of course, Brody will only sleep on my chest… so now he is asleep too. With everyone asleep, I will myself to stop my teeth from chattering. Try to relax my seizing muscles. Try, unsuccessfully, to find sleep. My one inch thick mattress might as well have been nonexistent. My bones can feel the frozen ground beneath me… which is being pressed harder into my spine by the 30lb bowling ball that was sleeping on my chest. I lay there for what feels like an eternity before my brain starts to scream inside of me… MOVE! YOU MUST MOVE!!
So, I roll Brody over to his side, and I escape the tent. I escape the cold. I slam the door on the car and the engine purrs to life. The heater is soon bellowing sweet warm air onto my frozen carcass. It is merely 8pm. I laid in the tent for 17 minutes before I broke.
I must have dozed off because the next thing that I hear around 11pm is Fraser yelling at me from the tent. Let me clarify. Fraser was murdering my name through the air that separated the tent and the car. I jumped from my cocoon… thinking… clearly they are being eaten by bears. I mean, why else would he be yelling at me like this!? I roll down my window… as quickly as this luxurious breakfast-in-bed-style-sleeping-arrangement I have found for myself will let me… and I ask him what is the matter. All of the boys were screaming. Crying from frozen little lips, frozen little lungs.
We loaded them all into my ‘bed and breakfast’, and we bolted.
We drove home.
We left all of our camping gear set up right where it was. The dog was lucky we remembered to get him. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
We cuddled up in our warm beds together, and we slept the night away in flimsy pajamas while the heater returned our joints to working limbs. We woke up late the next morning. We ate a wonderful breakfast, and then we drove back to Mt. Charleston to spend the day camping. Kind of.
I’m guessing that this isn’t a real success story for all of you true campers out there, but damnit… I felt just like Hudson did on as he climbed this mountain (and asked me to take a photo of him on his journey)… like I had conquered the world. I am a mom of three boys, and I CAMPED!!!….. kind of. 
