Is it Time to Go Camping, Yet?

The sun is warming us up, the leaves are starting to form on the trees, and the tulips are growing. Yes, spring has sprung! With spring come plans for the summer.  As many of you know and most likely have experienced, the calender seems to populate itself on May first.  All of a sudden weekends are being filled up with birthday parties, weddings, family reunions, community and church events - you get the picture.  All of these are really important  things to do, and fun to be a part of, but sometimes can be very overwhelming. I think it can be very exhausting to be on the run all the time and not slow down.

I know how much my kids enjoy, for example, a lazy Saturday when we just "hang out" and do fun stuff.  Unfortunately, these Saturdays do not come very often. Also, with all the summer plans, specific and purposeful family time gets forgotten.

I started this blog to inspire parents to take their kids camping, and I still advocate that getting into the outdoors is a great way to just slow down and bond with your kids.

The other day I was talking with my youngest son and we were discussing  how it was getting warm out and the robins were showing up again, and he said to me, "Is it time to go camping yet?"   I chuckled and told him that soon we will go.

I know for some of you camping seems like a lot of work or maybe you don't know where to begin, and that's a fair assessment.   But when you have a couple days to be away from the busyness of life and work (and the television) you can have a schedule-free day with the kiddos for just walking, talking and noticing the wildlife and flowers.  And what's better than ending that schedule-free day around the campfire with s'mores, funny stories and enjoy the laughter of your young ones.

So yes it is time to go camping!

Son of a Camping Dad

Hiking in the forest

Hi, I'm a son of the Camping Dad. I'm gonna tell you all about what I think about camping, and our camping trips. I really like camping because there's so much fun stuff to do!  Hiking, fishing, and just sitting around the campsite eating s'mores.
We have gone to so many different campsites One of my favorites was Afton State Park.  It was fun because there was a HUGE hill we had walk up and carry our gear, it was very hard but fun at the same time. There was also a very cool small beach that we liked to go to! Another one of my favorites was Myre Big Island State Park. It was a lot of fun because there was a steep hill we climbed and found a tiny little beach also, and a huge bike trail! We couldn't go to the end of it though because my little brother...and I...got tired. The only bad thing was the SPIDERS! It was not so bad outside, but if you went in the bathrooms...I don't even want to talk about it.  Over all it was a ton of fun! The last campsite I want to tell you about is Nemadji State Forest. It was a special trip with other boys my age and when we got there we all got out our gear and had to walk to the campsite in the dark. When we got there we made a fire, set up our tents and went to sleep.  The next day we went to a lake and I learned how to canoe! We also learned how to survive if your canoe tips in the middle of the lake.  Then we got to swim at the lake all day! We also tried fishing at that lake but I didn't catch anything. I also learned how to make a fire near a forest with only what you find and have with you. Even though the mosquitoes were awful I had a fun time camping!

Canoeing lessons

This is me tipping the canoe over, on purpose!