sonshine fest (part I)

We can now add camping and concerts to the list of Cayla's firsts. Last week, the three of us and Leah's nephew Dylan drove up to Willmar, Minnesota, for an outdoor Christian music festival called Sonshine. I had been to Sonshine a couple of times when I was younger and was excited to take the family there, although we were a little hesitant about the drive (about 6 1/2 hours) and how Cayla would do sleeping in a tent. Crying in her room at home and crying outside surrounded by a bunch of people trying to sleep are two different things. Once again, Cayla knocked it out of the park and left us shaking our heads at this incredible little girl. Here we are after finally arriving and finding a spot to put up our tent--Cayla was pretty happy to get out of the car!

This tent was home from Wednesday night until we left just before midnight on Friday night. We couldn't believe how many tents were already there when we arrived, which was still a couple hours before the first show started. After driving around we finally found a spot to call home, a 10-minute walk from the showers and 5-minute walk from the main civic center. Overall, considering there were 20,000 people there, it was a good spot for us.

We realized a couple things. First, we LOVE to camp! Second, we are definitely inexperienced. We didn't pack many warm clothes and it was freezing at night. We also forgot to bring matches for our little gas grill and had to ask some people around us to give us a match. "One-time-a- year campers?" the guy said with a smile as he gave us a match. Uh, first time since we've been married actually. And we also forgot to bring the eggs, as Dylan reminded us a couple dozen times. So we had a Thursday breakfast of sausage patties, hashbrowns, and... chocolate donuts. Here is Chef Dylan at work.

We decided not to bring a stroller, and it was a good decision. We either carried Cayla or put her in the BabyBjorn, which she thought was a blast. How did Cayla like the music? Stay tuned for part II later. There will also be a great picture of her first tooth coming later this week.