Cherish their Firsts

Oh how I love to see my son do things for the very first time. It's so new to them and if it's a place it's like an unexplored land. Dillon's first official camping trip was June 12th and I had my ideas of how it may go. I didn't expect him to tolerate the heat well and I didn't expect him to ever go to sleep...but I was wrong about both. I had more trouble doing those things than he did! We got there around 3 PM and got our things unloaded and situated. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention all the people who accompanied us; there was Jon, Dillon and I, my Mom, Dad and Emily, my sister Brittany and her husband Clay and my cousin Curtis, his wife Tina and their kids: Dustin, Kaitlyn and Destiny. What a crowd eh?

Anyways after we got set up we decided to go for a swim down at the beach area. Just the women went first..my Mom, sister, Emily and I (Curtis and family weren't there yet). Then we were joined by Jon and Clay a little later. This was Dillon's first time on a "beach"-it wasn't an ocean beach but nonetheless a beach and of course as expected he loved it. I have a couple pictures of him enjoying the water:


Afterwards the whole crew was there and my Dad cooked hot dogs and cheeseburgers on his portable propane grill and my cousins prepared this mixture of squash, potatos and italian sausage which was delectible. Night fell fast and the temperature did NOT. At around 10 o'clock the men were all gone down to the strip to catfish and the women were sat around the fire talking and making smores. Dillon kept trying to get close to the fire and once almost did if Tina hadn't have caught him because he took off running full speed towards it..bound and determined to get to it. Thank God he didn't.

Well we brought his play pen for him to sleep in..however he didnt fall asleep in it. He laid with me on a deflated air mattress (i say deflated because the one we had was an extra my parents had..but it had a hole in it turns out so it was pretty much useless. After he was good and asleep I moved him into his play pen successfully and my husband was back from his fishing escapade. He and the men sat outside our tent while I migrated across to my cousin's site and talked to her a while..and while sitting there we had a little surprise critter make their presence known in a big way.

I was sitting on a picnic table and heard rustling in the leaves to my left,,my cousin glanced in the direction of the noise and instructed me to not move a muscle..I didnt listen and had to look...there was a "reverse" skunk making it's rounds through the camp site...i say reverse because instead of being black with a white stripe it was white with a black stripe! AH! But a skunk is a skunk and we waited anxiously while it crossed the path between my cousin and my parent's camp sites. My mom and sister had already turned in for the night and the skunk was making it's way to their tent. All I knew to do was jump and clap to try and distract it or make it go away peacefully.

We yelled at the men that there was indeed a skunk over where we were and they came over..one carryin a huge tree limb and another with a giant rock...like that was gonna stop it! HAHA. After someone threw the rock the skunk's way it proceeded down the hill and away from us. Whew! Afterwards my husband and I tried to go to bed..well he tried. He couldn't sleep because we were laying on the hard ground so he told me he was getting back up. So he went over and got Brittany's husband up and they left out at 3:30 AM to fish some more. So left alone I moved over to my sister's tent and her, Dillon and I laid side-by-side on 3 comforters for a bed and eventually all three fell asleep.

It was sticky, humid, hot and every adjective used to describe icky. But we enjoyed the company and the laughs and sharing in Dillon's first "wilderness" adventure. I love that little man and hope that he enjoys the many trips I'm sure he will take in the future with us as a family or with his Daddy as a Father-and-Son adventure!