three babies in the wilderness

One of the benefits of living in southeast Texas is the warm weather. After surviving a hot and humid summer, we are now enjoying a mild fall. The weather has been in the 70s and 80s during the past couple of weeks.

Feeling brave and possibly somewhat crazy, we decided with our friends Heather and Sam Cosby, and their 6 month old baby Anna, to take a camping trip. We went camping on Friday to Stephen F Austin State Park. The park is only about a 30 min drive from our house.

Camping with babies required a lot more preparation as well as a lot more stuff. Heather, the babies, and I drove out the the campsite Friday afternoon. Between the two of us, we filled up the back of the truck with two pack and plays, air mattresses, a hammock, food, clothing, sleeping bags, extra blankets, and who knows what else we brought. This was a far cry from the single days of throwing a sleeping bag and tarp in the car and driving into the canyon.

The campsite had screened shelter with electricity.

Our babies don't have many warm clothes because there is not much need for them here in Texas. We decided that the warmest thing to put them in would be their Halloween penguin costumes. Temperatures were probably about 50 at night.

Nursing one of the penguins.

Sam, Heather, and Anna hanging out with two penguins sleeping in the hammock.

Quietly sleeping penguins.

After the guys got to the campsite, we built a fire. The raccoons at the camp were especially precocious and came climbed all over the screened shelter trying to get at our dinner. Sam and Lonnie had a good time chasing them away. Thankfully they didn't run off with any of the little ones and we managed to only lose a bag of marshmellows from the back of the truck. Max loved riding in the baby bjorn and helping his dad start the fire. He eventually wore himself out and fell asleep while hanging from Lonnie's chest. He looked like a puppet. Maya seemed content to sit in my lap and look at the fire. We put the babies well wrapped up into the pack and play to sleep for the night. Maya woke up at 1am (which she has started to do occasionally no matter where she is sleeping), and we brought the babies in to snuggle with us. It was a long night with all four of us trying to stay on the air mattress. On Saturday morning, we cooked breakfast and then headed home.