Slept in the tent

J's nieces and nephew visited this weekend. It was not only Father's Day, it was also my baby niece's second birthday (see It's nice to have a niece and Photo-shopping). J got them all stirred up about the idea of sleeping in a tent in the backyard. My four year old nephew was particularly excited about it and couldn't wait for me to finish my dinner so that we could go set up the tent.

I had purchased the tent several years ago when I met J so that I could take her camping with me. I didn't think she would enjoy my previous tent, the small two and a half man tent that I'd had for about ten years. To be honest, not that I like to admit it, but I'd gotten older myself and my body was not as flexible as it used to, so getting into and out of the older and smaller tent was getting more difficult for me. It was time for a tent that was big enough that I could stand up in.

Our first camping experience together was pretty traumatic for J. Between the mosquitoes and a cycling mishap, it didn't look likely that she would ever go camping again. But her trauma eventually subsided and a year later we went on our second camping trip together. On that second trip we combined tent camping with trailer camping. We had some rain and the tent got wet and I got sick so I just put the tent in the trunk of the car instead of packing it into its bag when it was time to return home. When we finally got home, I just was not up to the task of unpacking and putting everything back in its place so the tent poles and fly ended up in one place and the tarp ended up somewhere else - and was not to be seen for the next two years. The missing tarp finally turned up last week in a hidden corner of our shed which we had to empty because we were starting a backyard landscaping project (J's mom found the tarp - thank you!)

So when I finally finished eating I went outside and set up the tent and got the air mattress pumped up and the kids were so excited and jumping on the air mattress. Then we took them down to the waterfront for a walk. We went for a long long walk and it was dark by the time we got back home. We were all pretty tired by the time we got back home.

I want to sleep inside the house with mommy they were now saying. So much for all the excitement about sleeping in the tent. They were more excited about setting up the tent than actually sleeping in it.

I hated to miss the opportunity so I end up sleeping in the tent myself. It's a nice big tent and I enjoyed having it all to myself.