Weekend Getaway

We had a wonderful weekend getaway last weekend.  It's always great for our family to get away from the norm and experience something new.  We decided this past spring that we'd like to go camping with the boys.  Glen took the big boys overnight last year with our church group, but I didn't spend the night since Josiah still wasn't sleeping through the night and I didn't want a screaming baby waking everyone up.  We bought a new tent that would fit us all and then just needed to find a time to go.

There's a state park about 2-3 hours away that has old dinosaur footprints in the riverbed so we wanted to check that place out.  We were hoping to go for Memorial Day Weekend, but they were all booked up by the time we looked into it.  The next closest state park was also booked for Memorial Day Weekend, but had openings for the next weekend so we booked that place.

We wanted to do a run-through of the tent experience in the safety of our backyard, so we set up the tent on Friday of the long weekend.  Glen and the big boys napped out there that day.  And then it rained.  And pretty much rained the rest of the weekend.  It wasn't just rain, though, it was thunder and lightening.  We just weren't up for that kind of adventure.  Monday was dry and sunny, but since Glen had to get up for work on Tuesday, we took the tent down.

Saturday morning we loaded up and headed out.  We didn't really have any firm plans, which ended up being best.  We ended up driving through a cute small town around lunch time and found our kids' favorite Mexican (california mexican style) restaurant.  That was perfect! 

Before getting to the state park we drove past a drive-thru wildlife park.  I'd heard a recommendation to visit there, so we turned the car around to check it out.  It ended up taking over two hours to drive through and see all the animals, but it was a great experience.  We let the big boys free in the back of the van with the bag of animal food we bought, which was a mistake.  Josiah rode on my lap for most of the drive but he was also in Glen's lap for part of it.  It really was a fun, carefree time for all of us.  Though admittedly, by the end Glen and I were so over the animals and just ready to get out of there.

The campground was great.  It was well-wooded and green.  There was a lake for swimming or fishing, but we did our boys' favorite past-time, throwing rocks in the water.  The bathrooms were apparently brand new.  I didn't check out the showers, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the bathrooms, but at least they had them.  We set up our tent and then headed down to the water for a bit.  We ended up fixing our dinner down by the water too.  There was also a fabulous playground for the kids. 

It took the boys quite a long time to settle down once we were in the tent for the night.  But pretty much right at 10:00 they all zonked out.  It was really hot and humid and we'd only packed long pant and long sleeve pajamas for them.  I hated to put them in the warm pajamas when it was so hot, and they had sleeping bags to sleep in, so we let them sleep in their clothes from the day.  But then I worried they would get too cold.  I stayed awake worrying about them getting cold and wondering if I should change them or just keep covering them up.  They are not yet to the stage of sleeping still in the same position, so they were all over the place.  Josiah still sleeps in a crib at home, so the extra freedom had him all over.  At one point in the night I thought I heard it raining, so then I worried about the boys getting too close to the sides of the tent.  I kept waking up and moving Josiah back to his spot on the mat.  It was quite cute the next morning to see the three of them laying side by side.  Unfortunatly we left the camera by the door of the tent and couldn't get to it without waking up the kids.  Our air mattress has a leak, we discovered, which wasn't the best, but it wasn't too bad either, as long as we didn't lay the wrong way.

They were antsy to get to the playground.  One funny thing was that Glen wanted to change clothes (he'd slept in his clothes too).  There was zero privacy in the tent so he turned his back.  The boys thought it was hilarious when he pulled his shorts down and they saw his underwear.  And then it was doubly hilarious when he changed his underwear and they saw his bare bottom.  And of course, in a tent everyone around us could hear us.  We let them play on the playground for a bit and then we headed back to the tent to have breakfast (cold cereal).  We took down the tent and packed up and were headed out by 9:30 or 10. 

We decided that instead of the dinosaur state park, we'd take them to a kids dinosaur museum in the closest town.  That ended up being the right choice.  They had many giant life-size dinosaur replicas along a one mile trail.  Halfway is a koi pond where we fed the crazy fish.  At the end is a boneyard with "bones" burried in sand the kids have to brush off and discover.  They also had a fossil dig with sand and tiny bones/teeth the kids dig up and get to keep (three only).  There was a little playground we enjoyed too.  We felt like this was a great place for the kids to get their wiggles out before the drive home.  We had lunch at Subway and then found this famous pie place in town where we had dessert.

The boys pretty much slept the entire way home.  It was a nice quiet drive.