Camping...

This weekend we went camping- our very first camping trip as a family! Eric and I have gone lots of times in the last 6 years, but this was our first one with Malak- our new and improved family! :)
Mal was quite the campin' boy...he was wedged in the backseat between the dog and the sleeping bags for an hour drive to our campsite, he crawled in the dirt, although, amazingly did not eat any dirt, he slept in the tent, "swam" in the river...lots of fun stuff!

The above picture is Mal in awe of the beautiful waterfall we were looking at, we were trying to teach him to say, "wow" but I believe his version was, "waaah". He was super excited about it and we had to keep a firm grip in order to keep him from excitedly hopping his way off the edge. Which, coincidentaly was about a 2 foot drop into about 7 inches of water. :)

Note to self: Set up campsite before it is pitch black outside. We did not heed Lori Rooney's advise, and left a bit later than planned and ended up setting up our brand new tent, that we had no idea how to set up, in the darkness. Oh and Malak would not let me put him down, so really Eric set up the freakishly dificult tent up all by himself in the dark with some occasional "help" from Malak and I.
On Friday night it was bedtime, and so we hung a quilt around the Pack and Play so that Malak could not see us laying there next to him and fight the need for sleep. So we hung it up and layed him down in there and then quietly layed on our own bed to see how this was going to go down. Malak was apparently not feeling that need for sleep and started fussing a bit, I wispered to Eric that it is a good thing that he can't pull himself all the way up yet or this would never work...Malak promptly pulled himself all the way up for the first time, popped his head up above the edge of the bed, saw us staring wide eyed at his new trick and started screeeeaming bloody murder for all of the mountainside to hear. Sweet. Eric and I started laughing at the unfortunate timing of this new feat and of course, that sent him into another blood curdling screeeeam. So that was the only tricky aspect of camping with a baby...other than that we had such a relaxing time, just our little family. The weather was perfect, mid 70's, so we went for walks, ate good camp food, walked in the shallow river, layed on a blanket in the shade of a tree and just played and read for hours, had 2 animals romp through our campsite- an armadillo and a black cat..although I still think it may have been a baby Panther...who knows. (Once, I was sure I saw a black Panther in Portland, OR...turns out it may have been a black Lab...they look so much alike) :) Eric and I were able (after Mal went to bed) to just sit in the dark under the stars talking for hours- eating marshmallows, chips and drinking beer. It was a delightful trip and we are eager to go again!