Camping for Beginners

So now that we've got the first day of school successfully under our belt, I'm wistfully remembering all the fun things Charlie and Tim did together this summer. There was the beginning of summer when Andy introduced Tim and Charlie to the notion of camping in our backyard:

Naturally, the tent was a big hit - don't know exactly how that zipper survived the countless zipping and unzipping (a real testament to the tents sold in the cheap-skate section of Target!)

Turns out that a back yard tent is a great venue for evening story time so the boys spent quite a few evenings out there reading before bedtime. But at the end of each story, Tim always refused to sleep outside and insisted on retiring to his own bed.

So, we thought we'd try sleeping bags.

Another big hit. Tim crawled in and out of them, made forts out of them, and encouraged Charlie to join him. But this still just wasn't enough to spark Tim's interest in sleeping in the tent. When we asked, he always declined saying, "I want to sleep with Charlie in Tim's bed." That was enough for us. (What do I care if he doesn't want to sleep in a tent? I'm more of a Four Seasons girl anyway!)

So now, in the aftermath of summer, the tent is packed away in the garage and the sleeping bags remain in a heap next to Tim's bed so that he and Charlie can "camp" in his room.

Good enough for me.