Ohanapecosh with the Covers

We did our first camping trip of the summer a few weeks ago. We met our pastor and his family up at Mt. Rainier for a couple of days of fellowship and fun. Previous camping trips we have borrowed a friend's trailer to pull all of our stuff because there just isn't enough room in our small van, especially with Ellie in the middle row now. We planned on squeezing Ellie's car seat in the middle seat between Bennett and Rachel in the third row, but when Jeromy tried, it didn't fit. We had several options at this point. Buy a smaller carseat for her to use when we need to squeeze her back there, borrow a trailer, buy a trailer, buy a platform that attaches to our hitch, or just make do with the space we got. I got on Craigslist to see what I could find, and I came across a cheap but old tent trailer. I called Jeromy, and he decided that we would drive the hour north to go look at it. Oh, let me mention that this was Tuesday night, and we were scheduled to leave on Thursday morning.

Long story short, the trailer needed some work, but the price was right, and we bought it. We registered it, got new tires for it and got on the road a little later than planned on Thursday.

The roof has quite a few rips that need to be repaired, but we decided to use duct tape as a short term fix until we have time to sew. It has two queen beds and two tables that fold into two full beds.

Sleeping arrangement on night one were: Jeromy in one queen bed by himself. It was too short for him, so he had to sleep diagonally. Ellie was in her port-a-crib where one of the tables were detached. Bennett and Rachel shared a queen bed and I slept below them in the full bed. I have a hard time sleeping in the best of circumstances, but add in camping and sleeping with 100s of other people close by, and I usually have a hard time. I put in my ear plugs, but was bothered that when the trailer moved and shook around, I couldn't hear if anyone was in distress. The night was pretty bad with Rachel kicking and fussing all night, bothering Bennett and me constantly having to move her off of him. I am not sure if she is just a very restless sleeper or if it was the environment. Night one: no sleep.

Our first full day of camping we hiked to a waterfall and had a great time. It is a little under 3 miles round trip which is a long walk for little ones, but they all did great. The Covers have 8 children, so there were lots of people to help us with ours. Samuel wore Ellie on the hike, and Bennett walked with the older boys most of the time.





That is one of the slugs that Bennett found on the trail, and yes, he did lick it. He is so my son!


Ellie finally fell asleep.


Pictures around the campfire. It was cold, so we kept a fire going most of the time and hovered over it.





Night 2: Jeromy and Ellie stayed in the same places, I slept in the queen bed with Bennett and Rachel got the full one below us to herself. I was so tired that I fell asleep immediately which is so unusual for me. I was jarred awake at some point soon thereafter by Rachel kicking and fussing which kept waking up Ellie who would then rustle around for a half hour before going back to sleep which would wake up Jeromy who would toss and turn and shake the trailer all around. I tried to get Rachel to stop fussing. I woke her up and talked to her and finally took her blankie away and told her she could have it if she lay still and was quiet. This unfortunately had the opposite effect. She started screaming and crying as loudly as she could and nothing would make her stop. It took me 20 minutes to get her calmed down. At this point, Ellie decided it was all too much in the middle of the night and started screaming and crying. She wouldn't take her binky and was mad! I brought her in bed with me and nursed her, and we both fell asleep for a couple of hours before morning. Bennett is a champ of a sleeper. It is like sleeping with a rock. What are we going to do about Rachel? I was a wreck after 2 nights of little sleep. We are going camping for a week later this month, so what are we going to do with a week of no sleep? Someone help me!



It was a nice time, even without sleep, and we love our dear Covers! We make quite a crew don't we? I didn't know about Bennett's face until I looked at the pictures either. He is such a clown sometimes :)