Happy Campers!

We had our neighborhood campout last weekend

and finally felt ready to attempt to take all 3 kiddos camping.

The only problem was that we didn't have a tent to fit a family of 5.

We've been making do with our 2 man backpacking tent for 12 years now.

So we took the plunge and bought a 6-man tent and headed for the mountains to try it out.

Here it is, all set up!

We had a great dinner with neighbors then the kids just played.

Henry ran off to join in a soccer game with the big kids.

James built sand piles and jumped in them...

Stella took off her shoes (which she does ALL of the time) and filled them with sand...

Tent + sand= stressing me out.

But, after a night of fun we returned to the tent, dusted ourselves off and went to bed, smiling...

Who cares if we didn't brush our teeth or wash our faces off?

It was silent in our tent within 5 minutes and Preston & I were just laying there in awe.

We were camping in one small tent and our kids were SLEEPING!

My nightmare about camping with toddlers didn't become a reality.

They slept through the night and woke up cuddling...

And happy (and silly) to start the day...

After some more eating and more playing we loaded up our stuff, with a little help from the kids...

{I love that James offered to carry Stella's sleeping bag for her! He's sweet like that!}

{But then he talked her into dragging this one across the parking lot}

My faith in camping has been redeemed!

We just may go on another overnighter or two if they keep this "happy camper" attitude up!