Camping!!!

Below is from the "abandoned baby series" (click here for the best one in the series). The photo was taken a few days after daylight savings time, when we were up at FIVE AM and decided to all go on a hike in the greenbelt. The kids had a fun time playing in the dried up Barton Creek.
Below are two pictures of Wilder and Louis, really in their element (taken from our Happy Hikers Greenbelt hike on 11/10/2011). The two are as close as ever, to the point that Louis's teacher tells me that sometimes she has to separate them at circle time because they hug too much. Of course, there is starting to be more pushing and shoving...In fact, the day of the parent-teacher conference I saw Louis from afar push a girl down (and I ran off and pretended I hadn't seen it). His teacher really likes him and basically blamed the other girl when I asked her about it though :-) She said that it's "that time of year" when the kids start hitting each other, but assured me that Louis isn't normally the one to start it. I think that's probably true, he's jealous of his sister but normally more of a clown than a violent-type.
Last weekend for Rosemary's "real" birthday we went camping with Amity, Robert, Albert & Flora. Aren't we brave? The last time we camped Rosemary freaked out and screamed most of the night, along with little Sadie. This time, Rosemary was SO EXCITED that she couldn't sleep for two days before camping, but when we actually got to the campsite, she kept asking when it was time to go to sleep. Basically, the part that seemed most exciting to her was to get to sleep in the cabin with Flora and Albert, so she wanted to go to sleep at 1 in the afternoon. After a little afternoon hike, some practice fishing (poor James really wanted to do serious fishing but was patient enough with the kids to let them practice casting), a spectacular smoked pork meal and great wine, sleep we did! Louis slept in the big tent with us, and only woke up once or twice in the night and went straight back to sleep. All-in-all, it was a success and the kids had a ball (and so did we). I felt vindicated -- most of our friends told us there were, in no way shape or form, ready to take the kids camping!

By the way, this was coming off the tail end of a "death march" week for James and I -- we (not always together) had gone out FOUR NIGHTS the week prior! I would have never thought it possible, but we did. Most of the outings were obligatory (Fiesta fundraiser at St. Marks and a work dinner for James), but we did have a fun night out to see Druha Truva, a Czech bluegrass band, at UT & eat awesome Mexican-Japanese fusion trailer-food.