Family Camping Trip: Planning and Pre-packing

Hello again my friends.

I tell you I have been and will be one busy woman for the next few weeks.

I am always busy the month before school begins and today marks exactly one month until school starts.

However, all that is another post.

I plan on doing a series  on our family camping trip.

This will be the first in this series.

I hope to do one where we finish packing and get everything loaded.

Then, if I can figure out how to blog from my phone I will put a few updates on each day. If not I will just do one big post either on Sunday or Monday when we get back home.

We will see what happens.

Okay lets get on with it.

First, here is the rough outline of the events that will be occurring this weekend on our camp out.

You can see my notes from our last meeting.

This camp out is open to everyone. Anyone can come to any activity. No one is obligated to actually camp.

I am super excited about this camping trip.

For one, it will be the first time my kids will go camping.

It is gonna be the longest I have been away from home in 10 years.

I will get to know my church family a little better.

There are so many positives.

However, I have found that planning and packing for a 3 night camp trip for a family of 6 is no easy task.

I have made list after list and I have started packing and organizing.

Here is the quiet corner of my living room with all of the stuff I have ready to go.

It's a lot. 

The first thing I want to point out are the neon yellow and neon pink shirts draped over the back of the chair.

We got these shirts for the kiddos to wear that first full day. Just until we all get acclimated to the camp site.

Going a little deeper into that huge pile.

I have separated a lot of our stuff into these gallon bags so I can find them easier.

Here is our first aid bag.

It includes: Children and adult advil, kid's and adult allergy meds, bandaids, neosporin, dramamine, and calamine lotion.

The feminine hygiene bag contains kotex and tampons..just in case.

This essentials bag contains sunscreen, insect repellent spray, glow in the dark insect repellent wristbands for the kids, a spray bottle and tea tree oil.

We read online that if you mix tee tree oil and water and spray it on your legs, pants, and shoes it will repel ticks. I think we will be spraying it around our tent too. Maybe it will keep the bugs out.

This bag has 5 smaller flash lights (one for each of the kids, one for me). It also has extra batteries and a bunch of glow sticks. The big red flashlight is for my hubby.

Another baggie full of rain ponchos.-Just in case.

Here is our bag of balls.

We have a small and regular sized basketball, a soccer ball, a nerf football, a baseball, and baseball gloves.

We are also taking a golf toss game, an outdoor gaming set that has volleyball net and ball, a badmitton set, a frisbee, the toss and stick ball, and a flip and toss set. Oh and we will be taking a couple sets of corn hole games with us.

Here you can see some of our food and snacks.

Our church will be providing breakfast and dinner but we have to provide our own lunch, snacks, and drinks. We also volunteered to bring marshmallow/ hot dog sticks.

Here we have our plastic silverware, toilet paper (just in case), paper towels, paper plates, and cups.

On Friday we will be making home made ice cream. Several of us are going to bring ice cream makers. I bought this one last year at a yard sale. Yummy.

Here you can see our blankets and the plastic bag contains the sheets we will be using on our air mattresses.

My big red tote contains our tent (link goes to a video (not mine) of the same exact tent we have.

The tote also has 4 twin air mattresses, one queen air mattress, the tarp for under the tent , AND the battery air pump to inflate our air mattresses.

Our tent is called XL Vacation Lodge by Ozark Trail. It is 20 feet long and 11 feet wide at the widest point.

It is 6 feet 6 inches in the center. It is nearly a home away from home.

As far as other things we will bring:

I have 3 more gallon bags made out for our shower stuff..one for the boys and one for the girls so we don't have to wait if we want to shower. I also have a baggie made out for our oral hygiene products.

I have a big cooler I will be putting our drinks for the weekend in and a smaller red cooler for our lunch stuff.

I plan on taking both of my cameras so I can take loads of pictures AND I am going to be taking 2 of my crochet projects to work on. I think that is all we will be taking.

As I said, I am super excited, worried, anxious, scared for this camping trip.

I am gonna need loads of prayers.

Now I will ask a question:

Am I forgetting anything? 

Is there any other camping essentials I need to take?

Be Blessed,

Erin