Camping IN.

I LOVE to camp.  Paul doesn't.  I can't blame him.  He hates the heat, and bugs, and whenever we've gone it's rained and he's been cold and had to fight off evil raccoons and walk half a mile to the nearest toilet and it's just never been that fun for him.  He never really camped with his family or friends.  I did.  He's a city boy, and I'm a country girl.  I knew this when I married him. 

So we've done the camp-in date night before.  But it was WAY more fun (a) as a married couple without other people around, and (b) with the extra touches I added to make it more authentic.  :)  Last night was super fun, and here are some pics to tell the tale!

I always got those glow-in-the-dark stickers.  But they're a pain to take off, and we really don't want them up in our living room.  And I knew if I went the Christmas light route that they would stay up until at least New Year's, and I wasn't prepared for that, either.  So I figured since we do this often enough, and since we both LOVE the stars, I'd splurge a little and MAKE a starry nightscape that we could lend out and reuse over and over again.  I wish I could take picture of how REAL these look in the dark, but you'll have to take my word for it!  (I bought 6 yards of dark blue $1/yd fabric at Walmart, and a $4 tube of glow-in-the-dark paint.  SO fun to do!)

Still drying...but you can see the swirly galaxy and part of a shooting star!

I put on some nature sounds as we set up our "tent"...fort building is WAY more fun with the huge decorative bamboo sticks we own!  And we haven't outgrown the need to build forts upon occasion.  :)

Our "tent," with shrubbery (ha ha).

Our fort with the starry sky hanging overhead (I used pushpins to get them to stay).

After building our awesome fort and rolling out our sleeping bags in it, we played some card games by flashlight.  We snuggled a little on our sleeping bags and listened to the "rain."  After it got literally too hot in there (blankets hold in body heat, p.s.!), we went to our "fire" (stovetop) and made s'mores.  It was pretty authentic...our marshmallows even caught on fire!  But I'll admit, it was nice having the air conditioning, too.

Once that was done, I taught Paul how to make a classic camp craft.  You can find the directions here...we modified it a little to make them smaller...and I had Paul go "hunting for sticks" around the apartment before we could make them!  Let me just say, there is something magical about the comfortable silence of working with your hands alongside your hubby and listening to nature sounds, even when you know it's coming from your computer.  It was as peaceful as an early morning hike.

Paul's Memory Keeper.

My memory keeper.

Then, we turned off the lights and went "stargazing" on the couch, and I did too good a job at hiding the constellations because even I couldn't find them.  Or the shooting star.  But the galaxy was awesome.  If anyone wants to borrow it for their own camp-in, just ask!  (For real.  I mean it.  Don't spend the money if you don't have to!)  It was just like real sky.  We just looked up at the stars in silence for a while, and Paul fell asleep with his head in my lap.

GREAT DATE!!!  It really was a fun night.  One of these days I'll make camping appealing enough that Paul will venture out into the wild with me!  But in the meantime, this was still pretty rockin'.  I can't wait to plan our next date night!