"camping"

 Heidi has been begging to go camping.  She plays camping multiple times a day.  It's surprising that we haven't found a weekend to go since we live so close.  First we had to get the yard in and then every weekend since has been filled with something else.  We were planning on going this last weekend with Jeff's parents but Jeff had an outage at work, which meant long nights and no chance of taking a vacation day.

 Jeff got home at his regular time on Friday and Heidi was begging yet again to go camping.  So we set the tent up in the backyard and promised that after triathlon is over next weekend we would go every Friday night in August (except the week my parents are in town)...that's our hope anyway.

 I am not sure I have ever seen Heidi quite so excited about something.  She was racing all around to get her sleeping bag and kept saying, "Should we sleep in the tent tonight? Let's go camping tonight, okay?  I'll sleep in my sleeping bag.  Should we go to sleep right now?  Don't worry, dad won't snore in the tent."

Once the tent was set up we had a hard time getting her out and she wanted to go to sleep at 6:30.  We convinced her to roast some marshmallows with us and she loved s'mores.  Once it was actually time to go to bed she of course couldn't fall asleep.  We read for a long time, then she wanted Jeff to tell her stories about when he was a little boy.  Then she got the giggles.  Then she wanted to tell us stories...oh my word, we were dying laughing.  She would get so excited and then say something like, "One time, we went camping in a tent!  Is that funny?  Then there were lights outside, but they weren't really lights."  Then she would laugh hysterically, and of course so were we.  I think she fell asleep around 11pm.

Savanna was part of most of the night....she stayed awake long enough to roast marshmallows and then we put her to bed in her own bed.  Once Heidi fell asleep, I went back inside.  It worked out quite nicely.  I thought Heidi would sleep in, but who was I kidding?  I heard her giddy little voice bouncing in the house around 6:30 telling me the crane birds woke her up and how she slept in the tent and how she loves camping and she can't wait to "camp" again.  Next time we'll camp for real Heidi Bug, but I'm glad you finally got to sleep in a tent!

After putting Savanna down for her morning nap today, I went for my run.  Jeff and Heidi were going to take the tent down while I was gone.  When I got back the tent was still up so I went in the backyard to see if they were there.  I heard Heidi's cute little voice in the tent.  I peeked in and saw her laying next to Jeff reading him books...he was asleep and she was reading away.  When she saw me she said, "Oh, hi mom.  I'm reading to dad.  He can listen with his eyes closed."  Please stop growing up, Heidi.  This whole parenthood thing is going way too fast!