camping in March

We have awesome friends.

The kind of friends that when we ask them,

do you want to go camping on Friday?

They say

absolutely.

And so we went.  Camping in March.

It was beautiful.

Our campsite at Garner State Park had this gorgeous tree right in the middle, which was perfect for sitting in the shade in the middle of the day when it got into the mid-80's. 

We ate a lunch of croissants with cheese and turkey while we talked about really awesome things, 

like how some of us tried to sell things as children, things like rocks and individual Cheetos. 

And at night, we ate smore's around the campfire, and talked about even more awesome things, 

like the Bachelor, rappelling, scary movies, and how I slept with a glass of water by my bed after I watched the movie Signs. I was 20 at the time.

We were quite cozy in that little tent, with the pack and play, the twin air mattress for me, and Kent's blanket bed taking up whatever space was left (he sleeps on the ground by choice, I promise!)

but surprisingly, we all slept great that night!  Nicholas didn't even wake up once,

and I only woke up when I had to go to the bathroom at 3:30 in the morning.

Have you ever laid awake in the middle of the night, trying to figure out what is worse:

leaving the warm tent and walking through the dark to the bathrooms,

or trying to wait until morning?

When Nicholas woke up that morning, he was scared at first, probably wondering where in the world he was, 

but once he saw that we were there he was perfectly happy,

and when I told him that we were in a tent,

his eyes got big and he pointed to the tent walls:  "oh, a tent!"

He then proceeded to say the word "tent" no less than 75 times.  I'm not joking.

And then he peed on Kent's blanket while I was changing his diaper.  Awesome.

Nicholas was the happiest little camper I've ever seen.  We didn't even have to pull out the toys--he spent the entire time just walking around the campsite, climbing on rocks, crunching leaves, and "helping" us set things up. He laughed, he jabbered, he pointed at birds and the moon, he ate cookies, and he seriously only cried/threw a tantrum once the entire time we were there.

Makes me wish we could go camping every week.  Even if I didn't enjoy it I think it would be worth it just to see Nicholas have so much fun.

But luckily, I do enjoy it.

Garner State park is next to the Rio Frio (yeah, you can say it out loud if you want).  We walked down to the water's edge on Friday night.  The sun was setting and it was beautiful.

On Saturday morning we took an impromptu tour of the rest of the campground, decided we definitely had the best campsite available,

and eventually ended up down by the river.

Of course we had to rent a paddle boat, and by stroke of genius we rented just one paddle boat for the five of us.  This meant that the men did the paddling and Allison, Nicholas, and I got to sit back and relax. 

Nicholas really did have fun on the paddle boat, once he got over the fact that he had to wear the life jacket.  He was waving to the other kids on the river, quacking at the ducks, and pointing at everything.

We had so much fun that we didn't want to leave. Cliche but true!  

We're hoping to go again sometime before Texas becomes Texas-hot.  

Maybe you want to come with too?