Our First Camping Trip!

This weekend we actually went camping for the first time as a family of four! The location we chose was the Vedauwoo Recreation Area, just west of Laramie, WY. We wanted a place that wouldn't get too cold at night plus had lots of area to explore with the girls. We met our friends Jen and Colby and their 3 1/2 year old twins Jordan and Connor. It couldn't have been a better weekend. It was in the 60's both days and didn't get terribly cold. We got up there about 3pm Friday afternoon and set up camp. The area is well-known for rock climbing, so there were tons of big boulders everywhere. That gave the kids lots of things to do. We had dinner and ate s'mores, then tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, the sun doesn't fully set up here until after 9:30pm, so our girls didn't fall asleep until that time. Then they were up a lot, keeping us awake, in addition to the random gunshots we'd hear throughout the night. Hey, it's Wyoming. What do you expect. Then the sun rises about 5:00am out here, so that's about the time Elise was up. That made for a pretty long day with two tired 2 year olds! We did get to do a short hike in the morning before lunch before we headed back home. All in all, it was a very successful trip and I can't wait to go again.



Linnaea climbs a boulder near our picnic table.





You can see the camp sites were quite large with a lot of room to roam.





Elise tries the boulder and follows Daddy's directions of "using all fours."





More bouldering.





Elise on our first hike on Friday afternoon.





Linnaea and Mommy on the hike.





Elise and Mommy.





Linnaea throwing one of her MANY tantrums.





Elise helps Daddy start the camp fire.





Jordan and Elise chillin'.





If I can't stop laughing at this picture, doesn't it mean I'm a bad mother? Elise got nailed in the head by a log Daddy was carrying. It wasn't pretty. But don't worry--it was nothing a mini Hershey's bar couldn't cure!





Linnaea enjoys her first s'more. That was after her two roasted marshmallows, her two regular marshmallows, and a graham cracker.

Counting

This is how Linnaea counts:

"One, two, fwee, foa, fie, sick, nie, sick, nie...."

and she keeps going. I think "seven" throws her off because it has two syllables. If I ask her how many of something there are, it's always "Sick? Nie?"

I help them practice counting by looking at books and counting the items, then letting them say the last number. With Elise, it usually goes something like this:

Me: "One, two, three..."
Elise: "Six!"

or

Me: "One, two, three, four..."
Elise: "Six!"

Do you see a pattern here?

Also, we went to the doctor for their two year check up on Monday. Elise is 32 pounds and 36". That puts her in the 96th percentile for weight and the 95th for height. Linnaea is 26 1/2 pounds and 36 3/4". That puts her in the 50th percentile for weight and also 95th height. The doctor says they are doing very well, so hopefully we won't see him again for another year!