1ST FAMILY CAMPING ADVENTURE

   TEAMWORK - the best way to get most any job done!

And our tent is up - we followed the directions and all went smoothly.

          Our camping home... beautiful!

   Mary Scott checking out the inside of out tent

A view from bed that allowed us to enjoy God's creation - lovely!

Benjamin with hatchet in hand, chopping away at our firewood.

Catherine and Mary Scott being silly over a cup of hot chocolate

Anna having fun playing in her pack-n-play under a canopy of trees

                          Digging for earthworms

              Mary Scott was proud of  "her tree"

       Benjamin waiting patiently for a fish to bite

         Anna and Mommy doing a little fishing

            Daddy and Mary Scott crossing the creek

                  Oh that water is cold!

          Benjamin's pet lizard, Camo

             and Catherine's pet lizard, Junior

         and Benjamin's other pet, Dart the frog

                   Morning by the campfire

Needed: Quality Time as a family... Solution: CAMPING!!!  

Indeed, our camping trip was just what our family needed - freedom from the distractions of home (chores, electronics, phone, television...) and an opportunity for team work and adventure.

We headed over to Kings Mountain State Park on Thursday to set up camp. Although we purchased our tent a couple years ago, this was the first time we've used it.  We worked as a family to put it up and thankfully the process went very smoothly.  Once up, we realized it is the perfect size for our family.  A 12 x 12 square... plenty of room for 2 queen size air mattresses, the pack-n-play for Anna and another corner for our bags.  Our campsite offered water and electricity and the bath house was across the road - all of which were nice amenities. 

The weather was beautiful.  By the afternoon, we were all changing into shorts but the nights and mornings were definitely on the chili side (around 40 degrees during the night/early morning).  Our bed clothes included socks and fleeces, and we all looked forward to a warm campfire to start our days.  Finding wood for our fires was one of the ways we worked together as a family, and Benjamin had a lot of fun using the hatchet to help chop our wood.  One of our conversations around the campfire was about how heavily people long ago depended upon fire.  We used the grill over our fire to cook hot dogs and hamburgers.  We made breakfast on our electric skillet... pancakes and sausage patties one morning, bacon and eggs the other.  Brian and I enjoyed coffee by the fire and the kids had hot chocolate.  What a great time we had!

It was so wonderful hanging out together as a family without feeling the pull of so many distractions that day to day life offers.  After breakfast our first morning, I dug in the dirt with the girls for at least an hour.  We were in search of earth worms for our afternoon fishing extravaganza.  We found lots of worms but were less fortunate on our fishing trip - seemed all Benjamin and I could catch were tree limbs.  Brian spent nearly our whole time fishing trying to get us out of messes.  Mary Scott enjoyed feeding the goose while we fished.  Although we had a great time wetting our hooks... the fish weren't biting.  At the end of the lake was a dam which fed into a pretty little creek where the kids enjoyed rock hopping.  It was wonderful watching them enjoy the sheer freedom that God's creation offers.   Other moments we enjoyed included swinging, playing horse shoes, making smores and singing along as Brian played the guitar.  One of the other things Benjamin and Catherine found fun was playing with their "camping pets."  By the time we were packing up to head home, they had to let free 2 lizards and a frog.  We made so many fun memories from Thursday to Saturday... the beauty of uninterrupted family time.

After packing up our massive amount of stuff (the car was packed!) to head back home, we stopped at the Kings Mountain Military Camp.  We got to learn a colonial dance called the "Hole in the Wall."  It was so neat to dance together as a family and learn a little history from our forefathers - a special ending to an absolutely wonderful weekend.

We couldn't have asked our 1st family camping trip to have gone any more smoothly.  We went camping one other time when I was pregnant with Mary Scott but this one will go down in the books as our first one with our whole family.  And one things certain... we hope it is the first of many!