A Camping We Will Go...

We planned a fun weekend for Easter! We found Texas Railroad State Park and made reservations on the Easter Beagle Express. So on Friday we packed up the car and together with Grandma and Grandpa we headed to Rusk, Texas (about three hours South-East from us) and set up camp. It was our first time camping with the kids so we weren't too sure what to expect, and I wasn't too sure how to prepare. I guess my mind was wandering because I forgot to pack certain essentials (i.e. plates, utinsels, bowls) But...I did make three batches of jam Friday before we left. Im weird - but the berries would have gone bad if I had waited. We arrived and set up camp at dinner time. The kids were thrilled to get out of the car and explore! Ella couldn't stop moving. She was hilarious to watch as she tried her best to walk on the uneven ground.

We started a campfire and the kids watched in awe of the flames. It was fun to see. Soon they got brave and started walking around though and we had to be extra careful they wouldn't get too close. Both Brody and Ella had their first smores with roasted marshmallows. Believe it or not, we had to push them to eat them. Marshmallow ended up everywhere of course, but they were yummy.

The tent was fun for them to climb in and play. We knew they were excited about it last week when we set it up to see if we'd all fit and they didn't disappoint on the trip. Putting them to bed was tricky though. It was late, Brody hadn't napped so I thought it would go okay. I was wrong. It wasn't horrible, but it certainly wasn't easy either. We put them to bed and they thought it was party time. Brody was pretending to be a monster and Ella was trying to escape. They laughed a lot. Finally we were able to get them to sleep (they had to be seperated first) but both kids whined during the night and Ella was up quite a bit. I have decided our tent is too small and I will not go again without some sort of matteress pad to sleep on. I was freezing all night and so I thought naturally Ella would be too (she didn't have her own sleeping bag) so I pulled her in with me and we cuddled all night. That was nice - she won't do that normally. None of us slept great, but it wasn't awful either. It was a learning experience for next time!The next morning we spent some time exploring, we had breakfast and we cleaned up the camp. We were off to the train ride! The picture of the train was taken from our campsite - so we were really close to the tracks. Ella was probably too tired to be walking without help because she kept falling and hurting herself. The bruise on the right side of her head happened on Monday (she fell into the corner of my kitchen island) but then on Saturday she fell on the gravel and got a matching bruise on the left side. Its the dangers of being one year old.