Roughing It!

Jon and I, along with my parents and brother decided it was time to take these kids camping. I was very nervous about it as camping can be so "dirty" and there are lots of things around like camp fires and poison ivy that don't mix well with three year olds.
I am happy to report that their first camping trip was very successful! They had a blast and so did we. There were a lot of firsts on this trip. The biggest was sleeping in the tent for the first time. We brought along an air mattress and they all fit on that. Ella had a little trouble falling asleep at night as I think she was a little scared but if we laid with them it did not seem to be a problem at all.
They all slept all night and so did we. They also took a nap everyday for us so we could keep them up later at night to watch the sun set and to eat some s'mores. KJ loved to play ball in the camp site and then run into the woods to find it once he would hit it there on purpose. Aimee loved to look for rocks and save them. Ella loved to carry her purse, baby, and cell phone around the camp site and act like a mommy.
The kids saw the sunset for the very first time and thought that was really cool. We then took out some flashlights and walked down to the beach to see the stars come out. They loved walking down the beach with their uncle Tony and finding leeches. They would actually hold them and throw them back into the water. (It was kind of yucky for the mommy but I did not want to ruin the fun).
They got to see where Smokey the Bear lives but he was not around that day so we did not get to meet him. We spent time swimming and going for boat rides in Grandpa's fishing boat. They enjoyed many cho cho wagon rides around the loop and they made friends with all the other families at the camp ground.
They liked to be around the camp fire and all three of them were very careful around the fire. They knew to stay back.
We found a frog one night and we also would sit very still in the campsite so the chipmunks and ground squirrels would run right up to us and eat. It was so much fun and the kids just loved it. We have already decided that this will be an annual trip for our family. We can hardly wait (now that the 9 loads of laundry are done) to go back next year.