Our incredible camping trip

This past weekend we decided to break a routine of weekend activities and do something entirely different. We went camping with 9 other families from our ward near a beach in Santa Cruz. It was a complete blast. We arrived on the spot around 5:30 on Friday night. There where two group campgrounds reserved for all of us, so we picked the one closest to the bathroom. Other families that situated themselves in the same area, namely the Wheelrights, the Shunns and Blakemores have already set up their tents and were congregating around the fire pit which was yet to be filled with wood and fired up. So we found an even spot underneath some trees, near a little grove that divided us from other friends that were camping with us, pulled out our brand new tent along with other camping necessities and set up our makeshift home. Lydia and a few other kids had so much fun playing on our half-filled air-matress and Lydia's foldaway couch.

For food we brought already cooked hobo dinners which only needed to be warmed up. Once the Churchills arrived and brought the firewood, we got our meals warmed up and quickly satisfied our persisting hunger. Lydia had a hard time eating. She was too distracted with all the kids running around. Our little girl loved this place the second we got out of the car. There were so many things to explore: several tents, little grove of trees, cars, logs, and picnic tables. Also, there were so many kids running around preoccupied with their own explorations, Lydia just had to follow them and see what they were up to. And once the food came out in the open, our girl joined a little army of beggars. Lets just say that not many of those kids actually ate what their parents brought for them.

Lydia made some great friends here, at Stanford, and some of them where camping with us. Katrina is a little 3 year old that Lydia loves, talks about and always want to visit. So, here, she followed her like a little tail. At times, Lydia would yell out Katrina's name if she lost her out of sight. It was so cute: she would find an adult, go up to them and ask them where Katrina was. Once she would find her she had a hard time keeping up with her little friend. If they understood her, they would try to help and point Lydia in the right direction. Sometimes, Katrina herself would yell back to Lydia so she can be found. Overall, when they shared toys, they played well.

As the night progressed, production of smores replaced the hot dog roasting. Kids where thrilled to find a stick or a wire and roast their own marshmallows. Lydia was not hard to please. She did not care much about fire or roasting anything. We found her at the picnic table with a bag of marshmallows which I am sure she could have finished if we did not intervened.

Finally, most kids went to bed. It was the time to sit around the fire and shoot the breeze. We talked and laughed until way too late (or early, depending on how you look at it). Around 1 or maybe a little after we decided to turn in for the night. As we got into out tent, we woke Lydia up with all the noise that we were making. After a little bit of whining she went to bed, but we had a hard time sleeping. It was hard to be conscious of our moving too much so she would not wake up again, and I was too afraid that she would get cold. We did not have a sleeping bag for her, we just dressed her in her winter clothes and put her to bed on a kid-size foldaway couch, covered by a blanket. She has never been outside of the confines of her crib for the whole night, and I knew she would roll around all over the place and throw the blanket off eventually. I assumed correctly. When I would open my eyes to check on Lydia, she would be at least half way off her bed, partially sprawled out on a cold tent floor. I tried to move her back a couple of times, but that only woke her and made her mad. At one point, she decided she would rather go outside. It took us a little while to calm her and sooth her to sleep. So we finally put her between us on our air-mattress and covered her well, hoping she would not have the chance to crawl out far. By then we were pretty tired, and both Paul and I just zoned out. When morning came, we were half scared half laughing. Laughing because Lydia was laying with the side of her face on the tent floor with her bottom still on our mattress, sticking way up in the air. Afraid because she could get sick from laying halfway on the cold floor. But it all turned out fine.

After eating breakfast and enjoying our campground for another 2-3 hours, we decided to pack up and meet all our friends at the beach. There, we just chatted, boys (dads) played some sports, of course, and kids dug in the sand. I actually convinced Lydia to come close to the ocean water this time. She came close, looked around and was ready to return back to safety. She never did like the ocean or other pools of water. Later on, when it got really hot, Paul went into the water with her. You can say she almost liked it, but not quite. Lydia preferred to stay in Daddy's arms when they were in the water.

As we were sitting on the beach relaxing, we saw an otter and 2 dolphins splashing around next to shore. I have never seen dolphins so close in the wild. They really where just playing about 10 feet into the waves. We saw them racing with their backs coming in and out of the water.

On the way back home we were really tired. Lydia quickly fell asleep in her car seat. As she slept we picked up a few yummy treats from a locally famous bakery. When we got home we where tired, but happy. We had so much fun that I told Paul that I want to go again before our next baby is born. The funny part is, it took us forever to unpack the car, partially because of laziness, partially because of my desire to go camping again in the near future.