It was also her 31st birthday on Monday, the 19th, so you can call it a little b-day celebration too. I even went all out and got her a Walking Dead Yahtzee Collector’s Edition game for us to play while camping.

Yeah, I’m a romantic, huh? Actually, we both love The Walking Dead, and I figured since we need more games for family fun, why not make it a little unique? Avery might be scared to play for a while though. Even I might be a little hesitant to shake the dice in that zombie head.

We were leaving for our campsite on Friday, but G-Ma had to work so we couldn’t head out until the afternoon. This was okay since we put off really packing until the day of anyway, and I needed to make sure we had the essentials. As a self-proclaimed camping newbie, I was confident I’d forget something, but wanted to make sure I at least had the food part ready.

Slow-cooker black beans with quinoa, big batch of slow-cooker steel cut oats with NuttZo, steamed sweet and white potatoes, canned sardines, salmon and rice, homemade NuttZo Banana Bread, beer, vodka, and Zevia (for a healthy vodka mixer, duh).

Not pictured were Lily’s Stevia Sweetened Dark Chocolate Chips, Elyon Marshmallows, and Annie’s Bunny Grahams to toss in foil and melt in a big gooey skillet s’mores concoction. Besides the s’mores, everything else was to be had cold since my newbie self did not have anything to cook/heat food while camping. It’s on the list now.

I also made a big batch of lentils and quinoa and put together several snacks for G-Ma and Avery to have while we were gone to make sure everyone was eating well for the weekend. Once my mom made it to our house, we gave her the rundown on sleeping, eating, playing, and whatnot, then gave it once more to make sure we didn’t leave anything out. After Kelley got Avery down for a nap, we said our farewells and took off for our long awaited camping trip.

What Google Maps said would take an hour was more like 2 hours since it was rush hour on a Friday. Cue Loverboy because Everybody’s Working for the Weekend and we all had places to go. After lots of mild cursing and the requisite mini arguments all couples have when driving to unknown destinations, we finally made it to Lavonia Park to camp on Lake Lavon.

You can reserve campsites online, which I did, but I only had 2 options for our dates and the rest were shown as taken. Our reserved site was away from the lake with no electric and in an odd area, so we decided to drive around before setting up shop for our 2-night stay. Wouldn’t you know, we came across a site right on the lake with electricity and no occupants. The electric sites cost $15 more per night, but we figured we might as well give it a go and test our luck.

“Besides, what’s the worst that could happen, they come and tell us to move?” so said my dear wife. Well, yes, yes it can and did happen. Only problem was, was it was pure dark by the time the elderly (and proud) Gate Attendant drove by to tell us we were at the wrong site and to move or pay more. Obviously we weren’t moving everything after unpacking, so we paid the extra and got over it.

Plus, we were already set on using the electricity to watch How I Met Your Mother on my laptop. It only took almost all our monthly data on Verizon to use our phones as mobile hot-spots, but it was so worth it to watch the shows without worrying about waking Avery. It’s the little things….

Go ahead, make fun of us for watching shows while camping, but damn, it was fun, and we really had no other plans anyway. By the time we unpacked that first night, we went for a dark walk around the park, used a fire starter log to make our foil skillet s’mores (there is a burn ban, so we could only use the grill…no ground fires like I pictured), and settle in for dinner and watching several shows.

Tent to the left, car to the right, and the lake was behind the camera. Really beautiful park and cleaner than I expected. Some of the restrooms were a little run down, but that’s not a big surprise anywhere. The biggest annoyance were the swarms of tiny bugs invading our face no matter where we stood. Another list item, bug spray. Oh, and tent stakes which I forgot like a dufus would, and of course it was windy. Go me!

But who can complain when you look up to this?

So that was our first night. I’ll share the next day, our full day alone sans kid in the next post. But, we couldn’t quite escape the kids; I’ll tell you why next time!

Have you ever been camping?

Ever go camping with your kids or do you want to? We want to take Avery, but think we’ll test it in the backyard first.