camping...sort of

Andrea, Emmett, and I headed up to the mouth of the Russian River to meet up with the rest of the group who we had bailed on for camping because of the smoke. Andrea and I reasoned that going to visit only for the day would be better for Emmett than going and staying the night where he would be breathing the smoky air all night long. It took a little bit to get out of the house with a dead car battery added in to the general process of collecting all things Emmett-related before leaving, but we got up to the campground somewhere around 1pm, I believe. The campground is amazing (Pomo Canyon) and it was great to learn that such a great campground is only 2 hours from our door. When we arrived at the sites, however, no one was there and there wasn't a note, but as there was a 3ish mile hike from there to the beach and it was the group's first day there, we assumed that they had hiked to the beach and headed off: Emmett in the Ergo. The hike was really nice with a mixture of redwoods and rolling, grassy hills, and Emmett was a real sport and slept the entire thing.

Our guess was right and we found the group of friends at the beach. The picture at left is Emmett hanging out on Jeff's lap with the ocean in the background. Emmett noted an uncanny resemblance between the sounds of the ocean and his noise machine, but in the end decided he liked the one he was exposed to first better.

We spent a few hours at the beach with Emmett taking a nap in the Ergo on Jeff, who then started the hike back with sleeping Emmett. About 1/3 of the way back Emmett woke ready to eat, was fed, and then stayed awake the rest of the hike back to camp just looking at the scenery while in the ergo without complaint. A pretty good kid, that Emmett.

Back at the camp, dinner was started and Emmett got to enjoy his first campfire. The picture at left is him relaxing at the fire with Jeff (with how much Jeff has been handling Emmett and the fact that all of the pictures of him with a male are with Jeff, I am starting to think that Emmett will be questioning who his father really is when he comes of age). We put him down at around 7:30 in a tent and he woke once about an hour later, but then slept soundly until Andrea and I decided that we should head back to the city at around 10:30 or 11:00. It would have really been nice to have Emmett have had his first true camping under his belt, but we are too concerned that smoke-induced lung injury will keep him from the 2028 olympic team so home for sleep was the final call.