Sunday, August 10, 2008

Here's How We City Folk Do It

Don't have the time or inclination to take your kid camping? Here's what you do:

1. Send your husband to the sporting goods store to buy the biggest, most obnoxious tent he can find.

2. Invite your kid's best friends, whose parents also happen to be your best friends, for an outdoor sleepover.

3. Get the kids all sugared up on smores and let them run around the backyard like a pack of wild animals. Your neighbors can live with the annoyance for just one night. (After all, you have to put up with their teenage kid and his garage band. Or the dog barking at all hours of the night. Or the girl next door, sitting out on the deck, recounting her *awesome* date last night. And it did sound awesome, if I was 24 again.)

4. Put the kids to sleep then let the adults drink lots of beer by the fire pit. Or if they prefer, play video games until the wee hours of the night.

5. Make the dads sleep outside with the kids while the mamas sleep on the cozy beds inside the house.

6. Make a hardy breakfast, preferably using cast iron skillets to get the full effect. Then send everyone home exhausted and declare the end of the camping season!

The instructions were basically useless. Or maybe they were wonderfully written and it was the user that was the problem?

It only took about an hour or so to put up the tent. And there was a minimum amount of cussing.


Just so you can get an idea how big our tent was. Everyone just ended up sleeping in ours.

Little angels. An hour earlier they were little devils.


No, that's not a woman with a beard! It's a tired daddy, who stayed up until 3:30AM playing video games. The first kid woke up at 6:15AM. HAHA.


Try getting 5 kids to sit still so you can take a picture. It is impossible.

15 comments:

Manggy said...

Oh, wow! I got a little stressed just thinking about it. But video games sound like fun. Er, I forget, I'm supposed to be counted among the adults... :P

Dee said...

manggy, it was the dads that played video games until 3:30 in the morning! The kids are all 6 years old and under. They crashed at like 10PM. Thank goodness.

Stefania/CityMama said...

ha! jj and the girls backyard camped at a friend's house last night with 3 other families...everyone ate/slept outside etc.

*I* on the other hand, went up to the city, got drunk with Cat and some gfs, spent the night at her house then came home.

SUCKAHS!

Dee said...

OMG, that's funny! The mamas drank and had their own slumber party inside. The dads were having a lot of fun too, playing video games until 3:30 in the morning. Then the kids started waking up at a little after 6, jibber-jabbering in the tent. I felt a little sorry for the dads, but only for a split second. Chumps!

Lars said...

Hahaa... I know that look of immense concentration in the first picture very well :-) Great idea! I must hurry up having kids just to copy cat!

Just Cook It said...

This is hilarious!

Uffe said...

Great pictures! It's funny how Kim looks so much like I remember him. Though... has he gained a little bit weight?? :) (I know I have...)

Seeing these pictures makes we want to buy planetickets right away to go visit you!

BTW - which game console(s) did you play on?

Dee said...

Lars, there are actually blow up tents where you just have to push a button and your tent is up. That's on our list of things to get after we make our first $1,000,000.LOL Yes, hurry up with the kids...Sonny needs cousins to boss around.

Uffe, he has Xbox, playstation3 and Wii, plus a couple of older consoles that no one wants anymore. Personally, I don't get the whole grown men and video games thing. I stopped playing video games in my 20's.

Oh yes, please come visit anytime, although I advise visiting in the summer when the weather is nice. You guys will love Portland.

And yes, he did gain some weight :-)

Paula said...

I love this! I bet the kids had so much fun sleeping in the back yard! Hats off to you for planning such a fun event. It's perfect ... grown ups get to enjoy themselves as do the kidlin's! Are you going to make it an annual event? :-D

Dee said...

Paula, thanks! I could see us doing it again next year..although I don't know if I can dupe Hubby into sleeping outside again while I sleep inside :-)

Anonymous said...

I get stressed out enough having a couple of friends over. I don't think I'd have the patience for all those kids running around. Hopefully that will all change if I ever have any kids of my own;)

Pam said...

Don't you love backyard camping? Those are really fun memories for you and your kids. My husband loves video games with his buddies too - guys just never really grow up do they?

QGIRL said...

We live next door to a family with 2 teenage girls. they did the camping out in the backyard thing last week with their girl friends.. It ended up being a long night of teenage boys running around the neighborhood tp'ing the trees and sounds of cars speeding away at alll hours. Also a lot of giggling, cell phone ringing etc.
Something to look forward to, I suppose!

Dee said...

qgirl, like the song says, teenagers scare the shit out of me. LOL

Heather said...

That's so cute! And an awesome idea for our five nieces and nephews. We have two brothers who are serious breeders.