Ellis Family Blog: Austin's First Camping Trip

We went camping with church over the holiday weekend at Stone Mountain Park. We had about 15 families for close to 50 people. It wouldn't be a church camping trip if there wasn't a downpour. We got there on Friday afternoon, we got the tarp and tent pulled out and then the bottom fellout. So much for the plan of letting Austin play in the pack 'n play while we set up the tent. After about an hour of sitting in the car trying to wait out the rain, we finally gave up and decided it had let up enough to set up the tent in the rain. Poor Austin had to sit in the car while we set it up. We couldn't hear him, but when we went to get him his face was bright red and covered in tears. Poor thing. I got him out of the car and took him in the tent. He screamed bloody murder. But once I got his pack 'n play set up and some of his toys in it, he was fine.

Austin did well the rest of the weekend save for a screaming fit on Saturday afternoon. I think his ears were bothering him because once I put drops in he was fine. It is hard to keep a bedtime routine when there is so much activity going on so we gave up on that. He was content to play in the pack 'n play while we ate dinner or attended devos. We got a net to put over it to keep the bugs off of him. Little did we know that it was also a great toy catcher. Austin loves to throw his toys and pacifer 'overboard', the elastic worked great to catch the toys so they didn't go rolling down the hill and get lost.

While we were at Stone Mountain, we went to the park. Crossroads was pretty neat, we watched the blacksmith and got to learn about the trade. We went to the 4D theater. Austin didn't much care for the water splashing on him, but other than that did well. It was funny, he would look at the screen and then turn and look toward me if something was scary, but he didn't cry or anything. We also played miniture golf and rode the train. Saturday night we went to the laser show, somehow Austin fell asleep during it. I don't know how on earth he did that as loud as it was. Sunday we went up to the top of the mountain on the skylift.

Overall we did well. Austin escaped with no bug bites (we didn't even use bug spray) and no sunburn. He did get a bit of a tan; of course I was good about keeping sunscreen and a sunhat on him given my sun sensitivity. Keith got the tops of his feet burned. My face got a little burned, as did my scalp where my hair parts; that was a first.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Proof we went camping, that is our tent in the background. We got a little camping chair for Austin, this is him sitting in it. He kept wanting to bend down and play in the dirt.