Practice Camping

Now that our kids are getting a little older we though we could actually have fun camping.  We were right!  On Friday afternoon we took off to Bohnam State Park, despite the intermittent rain we had all day.  We called this our "practice camping" since it was the first time with our kids.  The state park was only an hour away, we kept it to one night, and kept everything as simple as possible. 

It was a nice little state park with a small lake.  It was well wooded.  We didn't bother to check out its trails or anything because our kids are pretty young for longer distances and there was plenty of other things to do.

   

That night was pretty cool but with sweatshirts and a little campfire we survived just fine. Dinner was sandwiches compliments of Subway. We had some great neighbors that were kind enough to share a bit of their pine wood since all we had was hard oak that wasn't catching well.  We got away from the campfire for a short while to take in the awesome starry sky--always humbling.

We all fell asleep pretty easily, surprisingly.  We heard an owl at some point in the early hours of the morning.  He hooted for a long while.  Sophie ended up in Mommy's sleeping bag and Rhys ended up tunneled into his bag with his socks sticking out the top. 

Neal got a campfire started (much more easily this time) and fixed hot cocoa for the family. 

 Keri made banana nut oatmeal for breakfast.

As we finished up, Neal checked out how to tie a fishing line using his smart phone.  See, high tech gadgets have their place when your roughing it.  We had fun practicing casting and teaching the kids.  Not even a nibble, though.

We spent a little time on the swing set and Sophie taught Mommy a cool trick she picked up from preschool.

 Along the shore and throughout the camps where terrific finds for two little kids like freshwater shells, worms, rolly pollies, and sticks.

 Before leaving we took one last walk out on a well liked peninsula to throw rocks in the water.

Then Neal, like a magician fit everything just so into the trunk of the car until there was not a hole to be seen and we merrily made our way home.  Things we learned on our practice run were that we would need to bring pine, an ax, and paper towels next time and we are due to upgrade one of our sleeping bags.  Our family genuinely had a great time on our first camping trip!