Camping!

For Father's Day weekend we decided to pack up and head outta town, on what was probably our last pre-baby big adventure. As Mat says, it wouldn't be pregnancy if we didn't do something just a little bit stupid around 8 months. We have never been perfectly content car campers, so we found an easy backpacking trail about an hour from here (can I just say again how amazing it is to get the benefits of living in a big city while remaining less than an hour from true wilderness? Hundreds and hundreds of trails and parks to choose from- ocean, mountains, lakes, rainforest, whatever you want. We weren't the only people in the forest all weekend, but if we'd wanted to be, all we would have needed to do was drive another half hour or so.), picked up Mat after work, and had our tent staked in the woods by 8.

We are raising ACTUAL tree huggers. No prompting for these photographs at all, scout's honor.

We all had a great time, and though we are looking forward to the days of lighter packing for the trail, we're very glad we went. And honestly the pregnancy was more of a pain for packing than the kids- people who are 8 months pregnant are extremely precious sleepers, can't use plain old iodine tablets for purifying drinking water (something about the fetus growing an extra head, I don't know), and are not nearly as good at being pack mules as non pregnant people. They do, however, remember to bring s'mores supplies.

How many s'mores are you going to have tonight, Claire Helen?

Hey, don't we usually have, like, a dog or something on the end of this thing?

Children in the mist.

Simon is good at telling us when he wants a break.

Hey mom, I'm in a TENT! Not sleeping or anything, but hey, a TENT!

This is the way they really are, giggly, cuddly best friends who love to play together all day long. We know it's mostly luck, so we just appreciate our good fortune and adore watching them enjoying being together.

"You gonna eat that?" And Simon in Mat's baseball cap, keeping away from the evil sun. Did I tell you all that in addition to having every other non-serious skin malady in the book, he is allergic to sunscreen? Sweet Jesus on a stick, boy. I am really sorry about those maternal epidermal genes, but we have just got to be able to go outside every once in a while this summer. Maybe we could put him a giant UV protective plastic bubble.