If I don’t write about the weekend soon, I’ll never get around to it and I don’t want to forget it. There were some rough moments, and let me just say that camping with two young children is not what anyone would call relaxing in any way, but it was fun overall and I’m glad we went.

George was playing at a party up north, a friend of a friend. The guy has a beautiful house on the edge of the Maskinongé River, about two hours north of Montreal. He also owns the field across the road and so anyone who wanted to camp out was able to do so. In fact, although we only showed up on Saturday morning and left by about 10 am on Sunday, there were other people who had been there partying since Thursday evening!

We got up there bright and early with our friends Dean and Joanne; Dean and George set up the stage area and I took the girls down to the river bank to “skip rocks” as Hayley said (and requested over and over and over ad nauseum for 24 straight hours), though it was more like wading into the water and chucking rocks straight in.

There was no shortage of food since Joanne had brought tons of sandwiches and we had also picked up fruit and cheese and juice boxes for our cooler. They served supper – burgers or hot dogs on the BBQ with several different salads, and then the band started up. It wasn’t the first time Hayley had experienced the rock and roll lifestyle but it was Breanna’s first encounter with loud music. I sat on the grass, holding her hands, and she stood up, bouncing up and down with a big smile on her face. I guess she enjoyed it.

Eventually Breanna fell asleep in my wrap carrier, and even Hayley fell asleep on a patio chair for awhile. We had no bug spray because we couldn’t find any that would be safe for both kids. We settled on long pants, socks, and sweaters/jackets for Hayley and myself, and I put Breanna in footed pajamas and a hat. In the end, despite an utter deluge of mosquitos, Hayley had a grand total of ONE bite near her elbow, Breanna had none at all, and I got devoured by the little bastards – they bit me THROUGH MY JEANS. I have tons of bites all over my knees and legs. Gah!

I was a little apprehensive about the tent situation. I have no issues with sleeping in a tent and actually enjoy it, but I didn’t know how the girls would do. It helped that although they had woken up, they were still tired. Hayley had one moment of panic when a car drove by and the headlights lit up the shadows of some trees on the side of the tent, but I think she actually fell asleep before I finished explaining what it was. Breanna cried for 30 seconds and fell asleep shortly after having some milk.

Breanna woke up way more frequently than she does at home, but it was no big deal to get her back to sleep. Hayley never woke up until morning. She didn’t even wake up when Spike, a friendly lab mix dog, came sniffing around our tent, barked playfully, and then stuck his entire face up under the fly so that the outline of his nose actually protruded into the tent, directly over Hayley’s head.

I had a hard time sleeping because despite the incredible heat that day, it got ridiculously cold and damp overnight and I was freezing. Also, I’ve gone and developed later-in-life allergies (gosh, THANKS for that) and whatever I’m allergic to was running rampant in that field. I could hardly breathe all night. The irony was that I later discovered I had a box of Breathe Right strips (that work really well, by the way) in my jacket pocket, right next to my head but I forgot they were there.

The one thing with tent sleeping is that there is no such thing as sleeping in because once the sun starts to come up, you start to bake. It got hot pretty quickly and I think we were up by 7 or so. The guy throwing the party had set up a giant coffee maker, so that was appreciated. He also had bagels, a toaster, loaves of bread, lots of spreads, juice, and cereal. It was awesome. Apparently he was going to do up some eggs later but we had to get going. George was really tired and we didn’t want to keep the kids out in the sun and heat much longer because even by 10 am it was gearing up to be really hot and humid.

It was definitely fun. Hayley had a blast and I know she’ll be talking about it for a long time. Breanna won’t remember of course, but I’LL remember that my little baby went camping like a trooper at 7.5 months.

The band, doing a quick sound check. (It’s a bit hard to see, so that’s George on the far right with the guitar for those of you who are new around here.)

Someone was nice enough to take this picture of me with the girls.

Our tent in the field.

My view as I stepped out of the tent. It was such a nice place.

George and Breanna, early in the morning.

Hayley the rockstar, early in the morning.

What? A picture of me in the morning? HAHAHA. Uh, no. Just look at the picture of me above and picture me with combination hat hair and bed head, glasses, a couple of visible mosquito bites, and generally looking like tired crap. That would be me.

I enjoyed it. I think I would even go again.