Campcation

I grew up tent camping.  We'd go for a week or two at a time.  Our family would meet up with another family that lived hours away.  I remember having a blast.  Lots of great memories.  Swimming in the lake.  Floating docks that had slides that would go into the water.  Hours of playing Spoons.  And always, Maine lobster.  Yum.

I'm sure part of the reason we camped was because it was a fairly inexpensive vacation.  Especially once you have all of your equipment.  We purchased our tent when I was pregnant with Big One.  We got it on sale and I was a little concerned we wouldn't all fit when we went this summer (still toting around that fabulous Pack-N-Play.  Sigh.) but we pawned BO off on our friends.

When I finally got the Hubster's schedule in May my girlfriend and I planned a dual family trip.  We did some research and found a family friendly campground with lots of activities for the kids.  Oh did I mention that?  Lots of kids.  Five of them.  All four years old and under.  Heh.

My girlfriend and I did a lot of prep work.  Making sure we had all of the equipment available and we baked for days.  Days.

So... pawning off Big One.  My fabulous girlfriend's idea.  Her oldest is the same age as BO.  And they have twin boys that are a couple months older than Little One.  So they had two PnPs.  Ugh.  That meant splitting up for them.  That also meant extra space in one of their tents.  So the big kids got to have a fun camping sleepover!

We had a really good time despite torrential rains/storm on Friday night.  It just meant for a muddy Saturday morning.  Fortunately the temperature was amazingly perfect.  And there was a kid friendly waterpark!  My kids were in Heaven.

It was a great trip.  We decided to pack up and leave a night early.  More rain was on the way and it wasn't supposed to stop until the next day.  Packing up in the rain when everything was wet and muddy did not seem like a lot of fun.  The rain started as we finished packing up the car.

We learned many things.

Here is my list:
1.  Plan on eating kielbasa.  And lots of it.  Really that is all the adults ate.
2.  Plan on cooking lots of hot dogs because that is all the kids wanted to eat.
3.  Only bake banana bread.  Everything else went untouched.
4.  Bring rain boots for the girls.
5.  Get your reservation in early and get a lot that doesn't have a giant light that will shine on you like the next Coming all night long.
6.  Oh and reserve that golf cart again too.  That may have been the only thing that kept the kids from driving the parents crazy.  Heh.  

All nine of us fit!  I wonder if that will be the case next year...

Going camping with Polish friends is a fabulous idea come lunch or dinner time!

Please ignore the towel over our tent entrance.  The Hubster prefers to sleep in a cave-like environment.