First Camping Trip as #LahockiPartyof6

This weekend was our first family camping trip with four adults (Mom, Dad, Jamie, & myself), a 14-month-old and 2 one-month-old twins! We decided to go somewhere familiar, so we went to Island Resort Campground in Newark, Maryland. Island Resort is our go to campground because it is fairly inexpensive and close to Assateague so we can go four wheeling. Most of the time when we camp we don't stay at the campground much we are off doing other things, but this time we just hung around camp.

This trip was our trial run for our week long trip to Hatteras in August. The heat index on Thursday and Friday was extremely hot, which was good and bad. Good in the respect that it will be very hot in Hatteras, so we got an idea of what the weather could be like. Bad in the respect that we have 3 kids under the age of 2. Henleigh spent most of her time in the kiddie pool (or the campground pool) and the boys stayed in the "MC" until later in the afternoon. The weather on Saturday cleared off and the breeze was awesome!!

Both Thursday and Friday we had some wicked storms that left our dome awning looking like this.

The first time the wind picked up the awning and the fold-able table that was inside. The second time the wind picked up the awning and threw it down. So we just moved the table to the outside until the stormed passed. We determined that we need to buy more/different stakes. Here is what we bought.

screw stakes,

and gutter screws with fender washers. We took off the gray "sleeve" on the screws, added the washer and drilled them into the ground. So simple and can I say easy.

Inside the camper we had everything pretty well organized and had what we needed. It was setting up and taking down that we found we needed more organization and "gadgets". Hence the create organizer we added to the amazon cart. Inside we plan on keeping the stakes, spray nozzle for the hose, maybe some small blocks for the jacks, and most importantly the drill!!

Sleeping/Napping was something else on my mind before this trip. Ahead of time I had Jamie remove the table inside the camper which made a great spot for Henleigh to sleep.  We covered the floor with a camp mat and figured it would be like her crib of sorts.  It didn't work out that way...at first she didn't want to lay down there and it didn't have four walls so she kept crawling out so I laid with her in one of the big beds until she fell asleep and moved her.  That was good until the first storm came and she woke up.  From there I just slept with her in one of the big beds. Our plan is to revisit her sleeping arrangements before our next trip, thinking crib rail.  For the boys we planned on having them sleep in their boppy pillows on the big bed with us which worked out perfectly.  The problem came napping.  The a/c unit didn't run well in the heat of the day so they had to nap in the "MC", but they didn't want to nap.  All they wanted was to be held and it was too HOT to do this outside so Jamie or I spent quite a bit of time in and out of the "MC" with the boys. Oh and Henleigh napped in a pack-n-play in the "MC".

Overall it was great to get away and we learned lots.