1st Annual Morris Family Camping Trip

Hello again all. Today is the day before we leave to go on our first EVER camping trip with the Kids and I don't know who is more excited.... the Kiddos or Dad-O! My husband has ALWAYS Loved the outdoors and once spent 2 weeks backpacking in New Mexico!! He is the Typical Boy Scout with all of his tips and tricks for everything from tying knots to making a fire. Last weekend we went to the campground we reserved just to check it out because Luckily it's only 45 minutes from our home, and just being out there you could see all of his tension just fade away and his wonderful memories of camping and the Great Outdoors came rushing back! He was such a joy to watch as we discovered where we will take the kids swimming/fishing, where to play our games that require lots of space, and where to let the kids ride their bikes. (We are planning to purchase our own bikes for next year but this year we will just walk as the kids ride!) Today I am going over the planning we have done and wanted to share with you some tips I've found along the way about how to plan and pack for a camping trip with children. Now our children are ages 6 and 9 so for all you moms and dads with smaller ones will OF COURSE need more toddler "Friendly" activities but I still think the planning aspect that I will share can be used for most All parents. So enjoy!

First, if you and your spouse or significant other are like we are then you don't have much time each day to sit and actually talk out every step that needs planning, and if you are like us, you BOTH use your computers, tablets, phones, etc. to help bridge the gap in the communication between the two of you. If so I want to introduce you to something that is one of THE BEST apps/programs EVER made that will help you both collaborate the activity schedule along with the menu!....and that my friends is called GOOGLE DRIVE!! This is a program you can download on your phone, tablet, nook, and basically anything else, and the BEST part is.... IT'S TOTALLY FREE! All you need is a gmail account to get started and then you are ready! (The spouse needs an account as well) Now with the Google Drive you can share documents like Word, Excel, or just lists you have created. What the Hubby and I did was share basically excel spreadsheets with our schedule, activity lists, supply list, and menu. When I created the documents I started with an open office program on my android tablet. I did this because we were riding in the truck when we realized that was a good time to start our planning. If you are not a "Planner" per say and like to "wing it" most of the time, may I suggest that when you embark on something like a camping trip with children that will last a few days, then perhaps just this time you don't wing it unless you absolutely have to! Mainly because you do NOT I repeat do NOT want to get out to your campsite and then not know how to keep the kids from screaming, "I'm BORED!" Trust me!! When the kids aren't happy during a "Vacation" then it's going to dampen your spirits as well as the spouses because you will think you have failed when actually you just needed a little planning before hand. Trust me; planning it out as much as possible will keep you ALL interested and excited to engage in the various activities and meals plus you will never have to wonder, " what are we going to do next and what do I need to pack? " A little planning goes a LONG way when heading out for the great outdoors with your children, a tent, and A PLAN! Now I'm done "preaching" about the importance of planning and I'm ready to show you how we planned our 2 night camping trip. (We wanted to only stay a few days since this was the first time EVER that the kids have went camping. Plus the Hubby's work schedule just wouldn't allow us to take MORE time than that because of new equipment start-ups and other stuff he would HAVE to be around for just in case some issue arose that only he can figure out! (I'm so thrilled he has a Job that pays well and makes him feel so needed)

We started with planning the schedule. I used a basic Excel sheet to plan each day down to the minute! I only did this because I wanted to have as many "Back-up" plans as possible in case of Rain or if we finished an activity early. This Schedule was not meant to be the FINAL say in all that we did on our trip, it was just meant to give us an idea of all the activities we wanted to incorporate into our trip, and I used it as an outline for all the things I needed to prepare ahead of time as well as all the items needed to make or do each thing.

Of course when camping you will need a menu of sorts to go by when shopping for all the necessities and groceries before the trip. My menu was another Excel sheet with 5 basic area's: Breakfast, snack, Lunch, afternoon snack, and Supper followed by desert! Now WHO can go on a camping trip and not have desert after supper?! Definitely NOT us. I found a LOT of menu ideas on Pinterest. My MOST Favorite was the Pancake recipe by mudpiesandmelodies.com. It is a very simple recipe that you can pre-measure and place the ingredients in Mason Jars. I doubled the recipe and placed the dry ingredients into a big mason jar and only thing left to pack was the milk and vinegar! So easy! The rest of my menu consisted of the typical camping/camp fire food like Hot dogs, (all beef Hot dogs for us because my picky eaters!) Hamburgers, (Hobo burgers, recipe to follow) and of course sandwich items, and lots of breakfast meats! The "HOBO Burger" recipe I stole from the Hubby but I'm sure there are MANY like it out there! It's basically a Hamburger patty along with onions, peppers, and spices of your choice! You place enough ingredients for ONE person (i.e. the hamburger patty, onions, peppers, etc.) for ONE burger in an Aluminum Foil pouch, then place the pouch in the fire. (we placed ours toward the outside of the flames right were the wood starts to ash over) After about 10 mins +/- you grab your packet out of the fire, PLEASE USE CAUTION WHEN DOING THIS! YOU CAN AND WILL GET BURNED IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL! I used some Tongs to grab the packets. You open them and make your burger or just grab a fork and DIG IN! YUMMY!

We also planned on making sling shots, but since we were rained out I will post about the Sling Shots another time.

P.S. I started this post the day before we left and was just now able to finish, however, I will recap the trip in a post soon!

Thank you all for viewing and/or commenting on my blog. All comments and questions are welcome but I DO reserve the right to DELETE and/or BLOCK anyone that post SPAM or anything else that I deem inappropriate! If you don't want it said about/to you.... then DO NOT POST it here! Simple concept I think! ENJOY! :D