Camping at Caledonia

For Christmas this year, Mark's only request was that I "take him camping" at some point this summer. Well, he finally got his gift this weekend. We spent the night in Caledonia with our friends that Mark met when he was working in Hagerstown. We always cherish the time we have with them - such special relationships have been developed over the years. There is nothing like living in the midst of God's creation and we are so fortunate to have such a marvelous specimen so close to us - nothing compares to the smell of pine trees covered with dew, the crackling of camp fires, the songs of the birds in the early morning hours, the crickets serenading us to sleep (well, some of us - see below for details ;)...

We set up camp after a rain storm so things were a bit soggy and muddy but thankfully the rest of the weekend was gorgeous!

Daddy taught Lydia how to roast hot dogs and she discovered the joy of eating them right off the fire. MMMMM...



Baby Andrew (5 weeks old!) was such a trooper on his SECOND camping trip. His parents are so brave.



Ok, so sleeping was an interesting issue on this trip. We attempted to put Lydia down near her typical bedtime (7ish) on her little air mattress in her little sleeping bag in the tent (with her cow, blanket, and ba-ba's). She found it much more fun to crawl around the tent, so daddy let her sit on our laps by the fire and have a snack. We decided to all hit the hay around 10pm. We thought perhaps if all of us were "sleeping" she would be inclined to do likewise. Um, no such luck. Lydia preferred to crawl around the tent saying, "Daddy, what you doin'?" Crawling over daddy's head. "Mommy, what you doin'?" While running her fingers through my hair. Response: "I'm sleeping Lydia" "Where'd Guinney go?" (when she discovered him at the end of her mattress) "I found him" REPEAT. Finally, when we totally ignored her, she crawled into bed and fell asleep. This process lasted about an hour. At 3:00am Lydie woke up wailing. It sounded as if she were totally disoriented and frightened. Even with daddy and mommy right beside her, she was challenging to console. At this point, Mommy had to get out of the tent to use the bathroom (not surprising for a woman in her 3rd trimester), take some Tylenol (I missed my extra pillows :), and have a snack. Well, that set Lydie off again. When I returned she had another outburst and Mark said, "Liz, you're going to have to take her home. She's disturbing the campground." I was all prepared to pack up and head into town. A minute later she settled down and we all slept until 7. Gotta love adventures with a toddler. ;)
Obviously Mark had no problem catching a little shut-eye.


Camping with the Timmon's always yields some fantastic food. We had "MountainMan" casserole for breakfast - hash browns, sausage, eggs, cheese. MMMMMM... For dinner we had chicken cordon bleu with sauce, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, bread, salad - and they ate peach cobbler after we left. Unbelievable. Of course we all ingested more than our share of S'mores which was certainly fine with me and Cosmo!

Avery came on Saturday morning and these two just had a blast. Amy had the foresight to bring 2 of every toy to prevent any "It's mine." squabbles and they played quite nicely. Lydie was a little on-edge running on negative sleep, but with minimal redirection they had a blast.




Here are some photos from our jont through Caledonia.
A pre-hike hug. Mommy's belly is getting a bit big for that! ;)


The whole crew (minus the Moore's who joined us for dinner Sat. evening). Next year we'll be adding at least 2 new little ones!