Date 11 of 52: Living Room Campout

It's been awhile since we had a really involved date, so when one of Brian's teacher's gave an extension on this week's homework assignment, I jumped at the chance.  A little extra free time means date time!

We have been talking a lot about camping and actually just bought a bigger tent to accommodate our growing family.  All four of us have been camping in a little 2 person tent.  It was pretty big for a backpacking tent, but getting a little snug for a family of 4.  I had camping on the brain and decided to dig out the old tent and camp in our living room.  

I wanted to recreate the most important parts of camping; a bonfire, s'mores, the great outdoors, and good company.  Earlier in the day I gathered all the fixings for s'mores, a can of Sterno cooking fuel, decks of cards, miniature wildlife figures...

While Brian put the kids to bed I set up camp.  I used our large brown doormat to simulate the ground in front of our tent and made a "fire ring" with some large stones from the backyard.  I put a Sterno can in the middle of our fire ring and lit a match.  It was actually a pretty good indoor campfire.  It even crackled a bit.  I brought all our house plants into the living room and placed them around the tent for that outdoor feeling and scattered some rubber frogs, snakes, and lizards about the camp site.

Brian came down and I was using one of our fondu forks to roast a marshmallow over our roaring campfire.  He loved it and quickly started roasting one of his own.  We sat around the fire for awhile, munching on s'mores, drinking Shirley Temples, and talking.  Sitting around a Sterno can just isn't the same as sitting around a real campfire, so I was prepared with some other outdoor themed entertainment, the movie The Great Outdoors.  What's not to love about John Candy and Dan Aykroyd?

Raging Campfire

Our campsite was infested with snakes, lizards, and frogs!

We settled into our tent to watch the movie and munched away on other camp snacks.  I admit, in the end,  we did head upstairs to sleep in our bed rather than "rough it" in the living room, but we still had a great camping experience.