Last week was Take a Child Outside Week! Did you participate? We went camping!

We already had a camping trip planned for our family and some others but as the day of the trip approached the weather looked grim and most of our group bailed. Leaving just us and another family. We decided to forge on and camp anyway but we chose a different location that was a bit closer to home and where the forecast looked a little better, it paid off! We got there late Friday night, set up camp (in the dark!!!!!) and enjoyed the fire late into the night.

The next morning I was able to get the fire going with nothing more than the embers from the night before and some dry leaves (pat’s self on back). I had coffee on and a nice warm fire going when people woke up. Next on the menu was bacon cooked on a griddle over the fire, one of my favorite camping treats! Our friends cooked some pancakes on a camp stove and we feasted! After breakfast the kids played and we generally relaxed.

Later my oldest came running up to me and said that when she was in the woods she, literally, almost ran into a deer. We went to check it out and there he was in all of his horned glory a young buck standing in the woods. He paid us little mind and laid down for a nap.

Later in the day we visited an amazing part of the park known as Boulder Field. It really is just that, a huge field of boulders. The kids took off like a shot hopping over the boulders as if they were billy goats.

This was truly the highlight of the trip and I was able to keep the worrying side of me at bay. We spent over an hour climbing over and across boulder field. It was easy for the kids but quite a work out for me. After we were done exploring we took some time to read about how the boulders were formed then headed back to camp.

We were able to have one last campfire, ate some smores and cooked some hot dogs for lunch (and dinner) before the rain came. With the rain we huddled in our make shift shelter and sang camp songs until bed time. This was my first time camping in the rain and it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined but just for the record running to the bathroom at 4:30 am in the freezing rain is absolutely no fun. The trip as a whole though was a blast!