Nature called at 4:30 a.m... Too Bad Danny was asleep

In a few weeks, I will be taking the boys camping all by myself.  8 days and 7 nights in a tent with NO electricity.  We will be about 2 hours away at Sebago Lakes State Park.   We went camping here last year and had a blast, but we were only there for 3 days.  We all wish we had more time, so this year, I put in for a whole week.  Since this is going to be a long span of time, we decided to practice last night by camping in our backyard.  There is nothing like a backyard adventures to bring a family closer.

The boys both helped me put up our new tent, which is good as I don't know if I could have done it by myself.  Danny and I ate lunch in the tent yesterday and the boys played in the tent all day yesterday.  We tried to simulate an authentic camping experience by having a fire in our firepit last night.  We were joined by our awesome neighbors Josh and Susan for roasted "smarshmallows" (as Danny calls them.)

At around 9 p.m., we went in our house, used the restroom and then went out to the tent.  We hunkered down for the night.  It was chilly!  The boys both seemed to sleep very well.  I, however, forgot how loud our little city was at night.  We live about 1/4 mile from the interstate, so I heard traffic most of the night.  I never realized that there was a train that blew it's horn about 50 times at 2:00 a.m.  I'm glad I don't live right near the tracks.  I would also love to thank the trucker that decided to use his air breaks for about 30 seconds this morning at 3 a.m.  It sounded like an air horn going off inside our tent.  Not to mention there were countless flights and helicopters going overhead all night.  Camping in our backyard is definitely not the quiet environment of nature I envisioned.

Needless to say, I did NOT sleep well at all.  The boys, however, slept really, really well.  In fact, Danny slept so well that at 4:30 he woke up soaking wet.  Poor boy.  It was cold out and he was wet and cold. I woke up Joey to tell him we were going in the house.  Joey didn't want to stay outside by himself, so he followed us in.  By the time we got Danny dried off and changed, we were all wide awake and the boys were STARVED.   So, this quick thinking (also hungry) mom said, "Let's go to Dysart's".  For those of you not from the immediate area, Dysart's is a truck stop that is open 24 hours a day. They have AMAZING food, huge portions and the best feature for two little boys is that there are trucks everywhere.  We were seated in the restaurant by 5 a.m., eating by 5:20 a.m. an on our way home by 5:45 a.m.  We are not at home and the boys are watching Looney Toons.  I had to blog about our adventure, but now I think I'm going to take a nap.  Good night, er... good morning everyone.  Oh yeah, and I made a note to myself....Pull-ups for the upcoming camping trip are a must!