I really enjoy being outside. My kids might even like it more. Outside there live all sorts of creatures to be caught: toads, caterpillars, worms, frogs, fireflies,.. Endless really. So when I tell my kids they need to pack for camping, the contents of their bags look something like this:
Ant farm, books to identify creatures, flashlight, magnifying glass (Bridger calls his "spy glass"), container to keep creatures in, binoculars, and then the essentials like toothbrush, dog Max, and clothes.
Our first campout this year was with our ward family. It was early enough that it was still cool outside, pleasant to sleep, and woke up happy to stand around a fire. The kids main hobby was catching toads. Toads here are like grasshoppers out west, they are all over, especially at night, and the kids were catching enough to fill Bridger's container. It was so fun for my kids to be able to run wild and free. That may be another big part of why they love camping so much.
Ward Campout
Hiking and camping on the Appalachian trail was empowering to me in the sense that I now know I can start a fire, set up camp, and cook for myself. Feeling brave, I decided to take the kids camping. Devin was camping with the young men the same weekend so we did it alone, and I am happy to say, it went well! Because it happened to be a holiday weekend leading up to July 4th, I chose what I thought would be a less popular campground to avoid the crowds. We ended up camping at a family campground right along the Potomac River on the Maryland side. Not one that I would probably recommend, but it suited us fine. It had a fun playground for the kids, I brought the kids bikes and they had a blast biking up and down the roads, and we camped right next to another six year old boy and four year old girl so my kids had instant best friends. It was crowded and I was glad we only stayed one night, but my kids loved it.
Fireflies were the hit. Because they are usually in bed before it is dark, this was their first introduction to fireflies this year. I planned ahead and made sure to bring a jar specifically for housing glowing fireflies. They spent most their evening hours running around and catching those slow moving bugs.
The kids really weren't interested in the campfire or food, until I pulled out the starbursts for roasting. We tried some new campfire foods. Bacon worked well, and so did breadsticks... both cooked on a roasting stick. When I turned my back somehow Bruce managed to steal some of our bacon, but we enjoyed all the rest.
Brunswick Family Campground
I decided not to do s'mores this time. Muddy buddy s'mores seemed to me a genius way of avoiding the sticky mess. I figured that we were getting our roasting 'experience' in through the breadsticks, starbursts, and bacon we were roasting already. The kids found a way to roast their mallows anyway. My turkeys pilfered the mini marshmallows out of the muddy buddy mix, and put their tiny prizes on their sticks to roast and eat with breakfast.
Just a few miles from camp, but on the Virginia side again, and before we headed for home we stopped for a hike. We stepped out in good spirits, and came back a little less spirited 1.5 mile later (Bridger and Myra were starting to droop). Minus the prevalent poison ivy, it was a great trail and shady which we needed for that hot day.
And I found a few more pictures of a hike we took with the Tanner's at Lake Fairfax last Fall...
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