Words on camping and travelling with the kids.

We are slowly getting back into the swing of things at home.  Bear keeps telling me he is glad to be home and that he likes living here.  This is despite the fact that all the way driving home both kids insisted they didn't want to go home.  They wanted to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Not that I blame them.  Vacation rules, late nights, loads of family around, lots of spoiling from grandparents, and so on.  It was a kid's dream come true.  Sadly the real world must come crashing in at some point.

We had to say goodbye to some friends who are moving this week.  We just met them as he worked at the same college Tom does.  He's moving on to another college.  He has a definite plan of certain numbers of years at certain colleges and universities.  He's a librarian.  It makes me glad that Tom isn't like that.  We are pretty darn sure we have found our forever spot.  Tom loves his job and I finally got my acreage.  I don't foresee us going anywhere anytime soon.

So let's see... I keep getting asked if we really camped out with the kids.  Maybe we are totally bonkers but yes, we really camped with the kids.  I got asked this again last night at the goodbye bbq for our friends.  They all have little kids too but I don't think they have camped at all with the kids.  I can see where people wouldn't want to but it was actually a lot of fun.  We sent the kids on the hunt for firewood at one camp site.  They loved traipsing around the woods.  We checked out all sorts of flowers and even found huckleberry bushes that will be ripe a bit later this summer.  We just put the kids to work in all reality.  Haul wood, haul water, feed the dog, sweep the tent, and eat s'mores.   They loved it.

Sure it is a pain to do the set-up and tear-down but you sure can't beat the price.  No eating out, no hotel bill, and the kids are just plain tired when they are all done.  Granted they don't sleep well because everything is so exciting but they eat well and get lots of good dirt everywhere.  Kids do get absolutely filthy when camping.  Their favorite thing was to plop down in the dirt and start playing.  Thank goodness for wet wipes.

I'm sitting here thinking that I would really like to do a camping trip with the kids where we could set up the tent and camp and leave it set up for a couple of days.  That would be lots more fun that doing set-up and tear-down every single night and morning.  Maybe we'll try to work that in later this summer or next summer.  Even if we camp in our back yard for this summer.

I'm off to try to get more trip laundry done, stuff put away, and my house cleaned up a bit since we have company coming tomorrow.