Our Fall Camping Party!!

We left Thursday morning for a FUN camping trip with some FUN friends!  We had an awesome weekend full of fun crafts and activities that we planned for the kids.  For my kids this was their “Halloween” celebration for this year.  We don’t celebrate Halloween, even though we do like to dress up and go to Fall carnivals.  This year we just decided to do a whole weekend of fun Fall activities instead and I think the kids had a blast!

We once again camped out at Waxahachie Creek Park on Lake Bardwell.  This has really become our go-to spot when we want to just get out and camp and not have to travel very far!

Here are some highlights from our fun weekend!

Since we had such problems with injuries on our last camping trip we made sure that we got the kids the right gear to keep them safe this trip.  Here are my kids all geared up and ready to go.

On Thursday we didn’t really do many planned activities.  The kids just had fun riding their bike and playing at the campsite.

Of course Seth had to find a tree to climb.

My sticky bun ring that I made for Friday morning breakfast – YUM!!!  (from Pinterest)

Alyssa and I had some girl time Friday morning.  I was catching up on some of my reading and journal writing while she colored – such a sweet time!

After a while Mattie joined in on the girl time!

The kids also enjoyed some checkers and tic tac toe time outside (while myself and Angela enjoyed some Mommy coffee time in the camper – LOL!)

After lunch on Friday we piled the kids up in our camper in the bunk beds and enjoyed  some story time with some fun Fall books that we checked out at the library.

(You can’t see Alyssa in the picture but she climbed up on the back of Aaron’s bed and was asleep before the 2nd book was finished – LOL!!)

After we read all of our books the kids all piled up on the floor and watched How To Train Your Dragon while Angela and I had some more Mommy coffee time – LOL!

After their nice long rest the kids got back outside for some more checker playing and then they got out the baseball gear.

Friday night we enjoyed chili that Angela made – Alyssa REALLY enjoyed it!

Saturday morning we got up and went on our scavenger hunt.  Before the trip I prepared scavenger hunt bags for all of the kids.  I took old gift bags that I already had.  One one side I made a print out of items that they needed to collect along the way and put in their bag.  I put on there items such as a y shaped twig, a mussel, a pet rock, something red, etc… On the other side of the bag I put a print out of items that they were suppose to looks for and check off when they found them.  This included items such as a spider web, a worm, bird’s nest, etc.  I attached a pencil to each bag with a string. I also had them put on tape on their wrists sticky side up to make nature bracelets….that didn’t work out like I had planned, but oh well.

We ended up taking about a 1 to 1 1/2 mile walk around the park on our hunt.  This was so much fun!

Poor Aaron and Alyssa were always bringing up the rear with their short legs.

After the scavenger hunt we came back and decorated cookies!  Before the trip I made a whole bunch of leaf shaped sugar cookies.  Angela made the colored icing from the idea on Pinterest that we found where you use a packet of kool-aid in a can of icing.  Not only does the icing turn the color of the kool-aid you use, but also has the flavor of that kool-aid – very cool!!

Angela also made cool cups of milk from another Pinterest idea – where you dip the rim in white chocolate and then in sprinkles.  All of my little non-milk drinkers were having no problems drinking this milk – LOL!

We also made bird feeders!  We couldn’t find any good pinecones so we used corn cobs.  Angela tied strings on them and then the kids spread peanut butter all over them and then rolled them in bird seed.  We then hung them from trees around the campsite for the birds to enjoy (and hopefully the park rangers aren’t mad at us – LOL!)

After that we enjoyed a lot more baseball out in the grassy field! Oh man it was such a gorgeous day!
Unfortunately Aaron and I woke up Sunday morning with a stomach virus. :-( Not a fun way to end a camping trip…but at least it was at the end…and was such a small price to pay for such a FUN weekend!  (just praying hard that no one else gets sick!)

Memories for a lifetime were made this past weekend!!  That is the thing I love most about owning an RV – the memories made from the time spent in one!  :-)

Until next time,
Kellie

We went camping again - FINALLY!!

After a very long, HOT Summer we were able to go camping again this past weekend!!  Oh man how we have missed camping!!  The last time we went was in June when we went to Galveston.

We left out on Thursday night and set up at Waxahachie Creek Park on Bardwell Lake.  This is our go-to spot when we want to make a last minute trip!  it really is a pretty park.  On Thursday night we had barbeque sandwiches.  I cooked the bbq in the slow cooker all day Thursday, so we just had to heat it up and put it on our bread (which I happen to have some Subway bread that I got from a thrift store the week before and had put in the freezer)!  It was YUMMY!

A storm moved through on Thursday night.  It did rain a little bit, but not much!  But it did bring in much cooler temps - YAY!!!  The rest of the weekend was absolutely beautiful!!!

On Friday morning some really good friends of ours came out and joined us!!  It was so much fun camping with friends!!  We had a BLAST hanging out all day and playing!

The kids all enjoyed riding their bikes!

And they enjoyed being silly as well... LOL!!!

We enjoyed walking down by the lake!  I couldn't believe how low the lake is!!  WOW!!  The drought sure has affected this lake!

 When we were here before the water came all the way to that drop off!

 See that same drop off in the distance... all of this area was water back in May!!

 This is one of the boat ramps.. you see where it ends (where the white concrete area ends) and then you see land for quite a ways before you see the blue water.  WOW!

We also enjoyed making homemade ice cream!!  Angela introduced us to a new way of making ice cream.  You take a small zip lock bag and put in your milk and sugar and any other ingredients.  In some we had nesquick powder to make chocolate milk (you can also use chocolate syrup) and in some we had a drop of vanilla extract for vanilla ice cream.  You put that small bag into a larger bag that has ice and rock salt.  Seal the bag up good and wrap in dish towels and shake shake shake!!    After a few minutes you have ice cream!!

 Mattie working HARD shaking her bag.

 Aaron watching Mr. Tom shake his, while Joseph was busy shaking in the background!!

 Seth working on his bag!

 Alyssa trying to shake hers.  She got mad if I tried to help her!  But thankfully she would let others help her.

I promised the kids smores but it got too late to do them on Friday.  So we decided to let the kids have them for breakfast on Saturday morning (that way they had ALL DAY to work off the sugar - LOL!!)  Of course, due to the burn ban, we weren't able to do them over a real campfire :-(.  We had to use our grill instead.

Seth earned a new nickname this weekend - road rash!  Bless his heart he banged himself up several times trying to ride his bike down the hills!  He had one really bad fall where he banged up his head and his elbow pretty good.

But he did get in some good practice of riding the bike without his training wheels (thankfully we listened to Angela and took him to a grassy field - LOL!)  I got a good video of him riding!  (never mind the pajama pants - when we told him to go in and put some long pants on this is what he decided to put on LOL!)

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He wanted his training wheels back on as soon as we got back to the campsite because he said he was much faster on the road with them on.

We are trying to convince him now to let us take them back off here at the house and he can ride in the fields with them off.  We are trying to get him to understand if he does this for a few weeks, when we go camping again (at the end of the month by the way - with Angela and her family again LOL) he won't need his training wheels at all!!  

It was a fun weekend!!  We can't wait until the next trip!!

Until next time,

Kellie