Camping

Today we had our first camp out! Emily couldn't stop talking about going camping since this morning, "Daddy, this is how you go camping: FIRST you put the tent up, THEN you eat dinner - you know, hot dogs, NEXT you eat marshmallows. THEN you go to sleep!" So I finally had a good excuse to go to REI and buy a tent!

Once the girls and I returned from our tent buying mission, we cooked corndogs and green beans, then we gathered all the requisite equipment for a good campnight - sleeping bag, pillows, stuffed animal, sparkle boots, scarf, and water bottle.

As soon as we got outside with our corndogs and beans around 7:00pm, she wanted to know where we could build the fire. As I thought about lighting up the grill, I explained to her that SF doesn't want people to make fires in their backyards.

While Emily ate her corndog on the steps, I set up the tent. She was amazed at how it transformed from a bag of material to a giant orange and silver tent complete with windows and zippers!

We quickly went inside (much to the chagrin of the mosquitos) and energetically finished the corndogs. She couldn't stop bopping around asking about every zipper, every pocket, and every bit of material. So much fun!

We made it to 8:00pm. She's now sleeping cozily in her bed.

The good news is that it took me only 3 minutes to take down and pack up the tent. Nice work, REI. :)

Around here...

We've gotten into a really good rhythm of doing lots of outdoor activities on the weekends, mostly visiting new parks & hitting old standbys. Along the way we've discovered that each of the girls explores new spaces very differently. (Surprise, surprise.) Emily's usually timid and requests a buddy to walk around with ---> cue Charlie, who has no fear and joins in wherever others are playing. She's the only one who'll brave the tunnel slide, which thoroughly confuses Em. (How can her younger sister be so fearless??!)

Charlotte's bravery has made her very comfortable & confident on her feet, almost more so than Em. But Em's becoming a bit more daring herself. And since we don't want to stifle her new found boldness, we're exercising extreme restraint while watching her, because there's still a 37% chance she'll fall. (Her lack of confidence might be due in part to all our past cautions, which is why we're trying to ease up. Either that, or she's got her mama's genes.) She'll often ask for a "spotter" when more than a couple feet off the ground, which feels like a good compromise :)

These are some park pics and some of our attempts to get a photo of both girls for our Easter cards. The aim was to get them looking at the camera, smiling, standing close together with clean faces... Ambitious, I know. We took these over a couple weeks, so they weren't subjected to constant camera clicking for days upon days. Initially, I was a little bummed we didn't get a *great* one, but now that I'm looking at them for a second time I think they did pretty well!