Backyard Camp Out

Chris and I have been wanting to go camping for awhile now, but as we tried to plan a trip for Memorial Day weekend, I felt a little overwhelmed with Ford only being 7 months old. (For reference, we took Callie on her first camping trip right after she turned one, and we had my parents along for the trip with their Airstream trailer.)

So instead of rushing into a trip (and having a hard time with reservations), we decided to camp out in our backyard and had such a great time!

(8/15/24 UPDATE): We got some awesome campground reservations and had an epic road trip! Read about it here.

Callie got to “help” pitch the tent and then hung out in the hammock all afternoon long. We had dinner down at the house, I made s’mores in the oven, and we took it back up the hill to our tent where we watched Cinderella before bed (Chris brought our wifi extender out for some good ol’ glamping).

The coziness of camping with the comfort and convenience of home.

The first attempt didn’t go quite as planned. I took Ford down to the house to put him to bed and then went back up to join Chris and Callie for our movie. Once we finished and she fell asleep, I snuck out to sleep in the house overnight, but Callie woke up in a panic around 1AM and Chris ended up having to take her back down to the house.

The next night we decided we’d all try sleeping up in the tent together, with Ford in the bassinet, and this worked out sooo much better. We had dinner in the house again and then camped out all night long on the hill. To my surprise, Ford did great and slept through the night (I think he was just so snug and cozy)!

Callie had such a fun time and talks about camping on the hillside often. Take that as your sign to do a backyard campout sometime and check out our favorite gear below!