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

Rain, Rain, (and Humidity) Go Away!

My friends, the sky is talking as I write this.

It's dark gray, gloomy out there!

It has rained every day for around 3 weeks now!!

I'm so tired of the rain.

I'm also tired of the humidity!!

It is hard to breathe when you step out side!!!

The air feels heavy and sticky!!

On a more positive side, My garden is thriving because of all the rain.

The trees/grass/plants are all beautifully green.

My house is staying pretty clean because I have to be in the house.

My car has been washed daily.

AND

Rain promotes nap time and we all need a nap sometimes!

Friends, I am still making lists and planning all my packing requirements for our big camping trip.

My kiddos are counting down the days!!

We have 8 days until our big trip!

We will be doing some shopping this weekend.

We need to buy some necessities such as bug spray, sunscreen, a tarp for under our tent, some outdoor games to set up...drinks, snacks, ect...

So I will pose this question to all who read this....

What do we need to take on our camping trip?

We will be spending 3 nights camping.

We will be sleeping in a tent on air mattresses.

We have to provide our own lunches and drinks.

What necessities do we need?

Hope to hear from you all!

Be Blessed,

Erin

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Well Hello!

My friends, I have been neglecting you!

I haven't been showing you EVERYTHING that has been going on.

Boy if I had, I could write a blog post daily.

BUT

I really wanted to show you what my garden is up to.

I didn't get to redo my garden beds the way I wanted so I just added compost to them and began planting.

Before we get started...I have lots of tomatoes planted this year. 

Some are the Better Boy Hybrids I planted last year, some are cherry tomatoes, and the others came from a seed packet labeled "Rainbow Heirloom Mix". So this year my tomatoes are kind of a surprise. I really don't know what I will be getting from the mix!! It is really exciting for me!

Here is garden bed 1. 

In this bed I have 4 tomato plants, a watermelon, and a cantaloupe. I also have broccoli, bush beans, fennel, and iceberg lettuce.

I'm really excited as my broccoli is starting to form heads.

This is supposed to be a cantaloupe. Doesn't look like one though.

Garden bed 2 hosts my wall of kentucky wonder bean vines and cucumbers. I plant them side by side as they love each other. I also have peppers, some herbs, onions, carrots and a tomato plant.

Garden bed 3 looks like a jungle!!!! I have 4 tomato plants (one in each corner). I also have 2 zucchini plants, 2 cabbage plants, some peppers, and some peas. Oh and kale.

I must tell you, my tomato plants are as tall as I am!!!!

I have been thrilled to watch the cabbage form heads.

Here is one of the gigantic tomatoes. Oh I'm itching for them to turn so I can eat them!!!

I have picked around 14 zucchini so far. Usually the vine borers get them before I get more than 2. I have been super happy with them.

One of my kale plants. I have been juicing it and making kale chips.

Banana peppers. I love the tang of banana peppers.

Here is the back side of the bean and cucumber wall. My beans are just starting to form and I have gotten 10 or so cucumbers so far. 

 I moved my greenhouse from along the house to my gazebo. This is now my favorite workstation!

My deck plants are doing ok...however, my kale on my deck has worms eating it. 

I don't mind much as I have more in my garden.

The lettuce is going crazy!!! It is so beautiful.

Finally my cherry tomatoes in buckets on the deck are going crazy!! 

That does it for my garden update. I hope you all have enjoyed seeing my plants.

I think the rain this year has really helped everything grow crazy. I have had so much produce. I can go and pick something every day!

Oh and a final picture....

Another storm is rolling in! It has been raining for 2 weeks here!!!! I really can't complain because of the success of my garden but man, where is the sunshine?

Well my friends, I have been busy scouring the web for more youth activities for our camp out and I have been making a list of all the stuff I need to take. I really think we are gonna have to take 2 vehicles, a uhaul, and a trailer. Ok I'm exaggerating but I do think we will need to take both vehicles. But I will keep ya updated.

Until next post,

Be Blessed,

Erin

Fun?! Perhaps

Hello again! 

I have finally uploaded some of my pics from the past few weeks.

Let me tell ya...I had tons to go through.

So let me just jump right into it.

First up is our family fun day of fishing and swimming!

See my family plus 1. My brother Lee moved here from Idaho. He is staying with us until he can save up some money to get a place of his own.

My son Eddie is posing for a pic.

At the Paint Creek Dam/Spillway, you can do a bit of rock climbing. 

Here you can barely see Hope on top of a really high cliff.

All four of the kiddos made it up. Hope is pointing out a good fishing spot she spotted from her vantage point.

Here they all are striking a pose, climbing down from the rocks.

We got everything set up and guess what....

Hubby caught the first fish.

After several hours and a few more fish were caught and thrown back we decided to go swimming.

My kiddos are water monsters! They love swimming.

Here is another shot of them.

I did get in the water but didn't dunk under. That water was pretty dirty from all the rain we have been having. Once I cooled off a bit I decided to sit on the shore with my feet in the sand.

This whole family of geese swam across the entire creek.

We spent a few hours swimming then came home, showered and ate some dinner.

Unfortunately all of my kiddos ended up with a sore throat complete with blisters, blisters in their mouths and low grade fevers after we swam. So I have made an executive decision that we will not swim there anymore.

I think from now on I will take them to Rocky Fork Lake. It is better taken care of than Paint Creek.

Now we fast forward a bit.

Remember everyone talking about the super moon. Well this is how it looked from my house.

I wasn't too impressed.

I did get this pic of my youngest son Sj. Isn't he cute?

And this pic of Faith posing. Can you believe she is only 12? 

I can't.

Fast forward again.....

We are now at Rocky Fork Lake.

It is a beautiful area down there! 

Here are my kiddos plus one of their friends looking at the dam.

This shot taken from the dam you can see my brother sitting in the foreground fishing. My hubby is in the background standing and fishing. The fish were really biting that day! We caught several. Of course, we threw them all back.

I love this picture! I love how the clouds and sky are reflecting in the water! I love the serenity of this picture.

This shot was also taken from the dam.

Fast forwarding to Saturday.

I have been in serious need of hubby and me time. I mean serious need.

The last time we had a real date was way back in 2009 when we went out to see Fast and the Furious 4!

YES! It has been that long because we cannot find a babysitter for our kiddos.

Well, my brother Lee watched the kiddos for Ed and I. We decided we wanted to go to the creek and sit and talk and just enjoy each others company.

As we were walking to the creek, I spotted this caterpillar on the leaf of this Mulberry tree.

I snapped a pic of this beautiful old tree. I love the way the branches grew.

Our town's walking/bike path roams by the creek. It is so beautifully canopied by trees.

On one of the trails that goes right to the water I saw this beautiful blue dragonfly.

The pebbles/rocks by the creek were still wet because it had been raining on and off that day. 

There were so many shades of gray, brown, mauve, purples, greens, and reds in those rocks.

I was quite surprised to see that the creek wasn't swollen!

We have had several inches of rain lately but even though the creek was higher than normal, it wasn't swollen like I thought it would be.

This part is under the train trellis. It had started to sprinkle again so we took cover under the trellis and some trees.. The sound of the water going over the rocks was really soothing. It made a great place to sit and just enjoy what each other had to say.

Here we are. Me and my wonderful hubby. I just love him to pieces.

My final picture...This isn't a cliff or anything but just a rock that is about shin high.

I thought it would be great to take the pic from a bug's level. That's one big mountain to climb.

Well there ya go..You are all caught up.

As you can tell, our family does a lot of "Free" things.

We are a single income family and I do save money on food and such BUT we still can't go on long vacations or go to the big amusement parks as much as we'd like but I think these types of family outings really bring all of us closer together. 

We do still have some fun and adventure ahead.

July 18th - 21st we will be enjoying our church camp out!

I am super anxious but also excited. It will be our first time camping...ever!

It will be the first time we sleep in our new tent.

It will be the longest I have spent away from home since I've battled anxiety and panic attacks.

I'm excited that my hubby and I will be teaching Bible lessons to the youth at the camp. 

It is going to be a fantastic weekend of getting to know our fellow church members better, fellowship, Bible study...I will make sure to have BOTH of my cameras charged and ready to go.

We also will be going school shopping either the last payday of this month or our first payday in August.

School resumes August 15th. Just a little over a month away. Boy this summer has flown by.

AND we still want to do one big thing with the kids. We are leaning more towards Coney Island than 

any place else...so I really hope things work out to where we can take the kiddos before school starts or During the week school shuts down for the Highland County Fair.

I guess we will see.

Well that is all for now my friends.

Until we meet again.

Be Blessed,

Erin

It's Independence Day

Hello again my fun furry friends.

Happy July 4th!

It's rainy here in my part of the woods so we will be spending the day inside. 

I plan on mopping my floors and I am doing laundry.

We will be watching movies and doing loads of indoor activities.

As of this moment, we will not be going to be enjoying fireworks this evening.

We have been dealing with illness again.

Every one of my kiddos ended up with a severe sore throat and low grade fevers after swimming at Paint Creek beach. I am pretty sure we will not be swimming there again.

As for other activities, we have been so busy here lately.

We have our normal activities such as church, Bible studies, work...

but we've also had other appointments. This month is gonna be full of physicals, vaccinations, eye and dentist appointments...all getting ready for the new school year.

We will also be camping with some of our church family.

We will set up at Kamp Dovetail on the 18th. Our itinerary is full of guest speakers, musicians, good food, free time, Bible studies, and games.

An exciting aspect: my hubby and I have been asked to head up the youth at this camping event!

We will be teaching Bible lessons every day. 

We have some great activities lined up for the youth! I just cannot wait.

Oh, we will be home sometime on the 21st.

We are also hoping to get a few more fun activities in before school starts back on August 15th.

I'm not really sure what we will be doing yet but I will take pics.

Speaking of school, we will also be going school shopping this month. 

We usually give each of  the kiddos a $200 clothing and shoe limit.

Then we buy school supplies. 

Last year the school supplies were $200 themselves.

AND on the first day of school they got a separate list..

School age kiddos are expensive.

I think that is all that is going on right now. 

OH OH ....my hubby also got a promotion at work and a significant raise!!!!

That will go a long way with helping get our financial situation where we want it.

My friends, I have tons of pics on my cameras I want to show you all.

I really haven't had much time to upload them and sort them out.

Shoot I barely have time to get online let alone anything else.

Anyway..I will TRY to write more really soon.

Be blessed,

Erin