Pui O Camping

Camping was definitely a hit!!!! Isabella and I were extremely excited about the overnight trip and the excitement just grew to the point that none of us wanted to leave. We arrived around 4:30pm and instantly Izzy asked to change into her swimsuit. Thankfully Jacinda was swimming and took her into the ocean because the sun was almost down and I

thought it was a bit chilly. She swam until dark... no surprise there. She LOVED it! We just put Isaiah in the sand to see what he'd do. It took him a few minutes to warm up to this strange feeling but it wasn't long before he was crawling around and eating the sand. I'm sure we'll continue to find sand in body parts for the next few days. :) We BBQ'd for dinner and enjoyed some high quality cupcakes (a lady in the church professionally makes them and brought us some..yummm!) as well as our mooncakes. Isabella brought along her glow stick lanterns and her, Jacinda and Trent went to work creating all sorts of art.

I was nervous about how Isaiah would do sleeping/falling asleep in the tent but he was awesome. We laid him down, zipped up the tent and within about 5 minutes, he was out. The only negative was when I crawled into bed... he woke up and partied for a good 30/45 minutes. But that aside, he and Izzy (who also did really well sleeping in the tent) slept their normal hours despite no rain cover and a very mesh-filled tent! Mike and I on the other hand struggled. Mike says it takes him a few days to adjust to sleeping outdoors and with my slight fear of the ocean... had dreams all night about big waves and tsunamis. Thankfully, I was expecting that so I wasn't a nervous wreck the whole night.

We had a nice breakfast and Izzy just couldn't wait to get in the water. We spent all morning swimming and building sand creations. Isaiah actually took a nap and then joined us on the beach. He loved riding in his car over the waves. He is getting to be such a boy which is really fun. He loves balls, especially basketballs. And it's the one thing that we can get him to actually walk to get.

After lunch, we packed up and headed home. We hated to leave so early (about 1:30ish) but once we started packing we knew we just needed to head out. It actually was a good time though because everyone got a bit of rest once we got home before starting the week.

Mike and I are SO happy that it was such a success. Though we now know that 1 tent is not enough for us. It worked just fine this time but Isaiah's not going to stay this small for long and #3 will take away any space for our belongings. So we'll have to try and hit another sale for one more tent. But I'm hoping that maybe come Easter, we might be able to do another short trip (there's no major holidays between now and then that have good temps for camping) but that will depend on Princess Lily Bob's arrival.

He enjoyed the sand until it was all over him and he couldn't get it off...

the thumb didn't taste as yummy covered in sand.

Isabella on the other hand LOVED rolling in the sand

the 'boys' (and I mean Mike and Howard) enjoyed creating this crab

Howard has quite the sand creation talent and Mike learned a few tricks

the others in the picture helped too.. a minute here and there :)

the gorgeous sunset... isn't God's creation beautiful?

(ignore the big black dot... my lens has a dust bunny)

Isabella building her own castle. Sadly it got taken down by the waves.

She had fun in the sand but swimming took the cake this trip. I couldn't get her out of the ocean!

My handsome boy covered in sand... we're still finding it in places. :)

He was such a good sport though.. only a few minor complaints of the sand on his hands.

Our campsite. It was in the best location... in the shade, surrounded by trees that brought a nice breeze, just up the hill from the beach. The only problem was that it was 1 kilometer away from the bathrooms. Thankfully, Izzy learned how to go potty outdoors and then we couldn't get her to use the bathroom. haha

Another sunset picture

looking down the beach

Isabella finally decided she wanted to try writing her name. She did it all by herself without looking at anything or anyone telling her the letters. I couldn't believe it!

My picture of the 'new moon' that the Mid-Autumn Festival was all about.

And below are Isabella's lanterns (we used glow sticks this year... much cleaner and quieter) Ave made wings out of them and put them around her waist. Then they made flowers and balls and Izzy hung one in the tent as her night light. We did have our mooncake too but I didn't get a picture of that.