Boulder Woods Campground

Boulder Woods Campground,
Green Lane PA 18054
http://boulderwoods.com/

Normally this blog is about our families camping adventures with our kids. 

However I recently went on a Guy camping weekend and wanted to post a quick review of Boulder Woods campground. 

For starters if you are looking for a sterile "RV" park, this is not the place for you. Boulder Woods has a distinct campground feel to it. But for me that is all part of it's charm.

 We selected this campground due to it's central location to everyone who was going.  We had a nice pull though spot close to the camp store and pavilion. The staff at check in was ultra friendly, and even assisted with some food from the kitchen even though it was closed. The camp store was fantastic. It was well stocked, reasonably priced and had a good "Rustic" feel to it. There was a kitchen for ordering food (burgers, fries etc) ,a DVD rental bookshelf, dry goods, clothing and frozen foods. 

We lucked out during our stay, it was cookout night. Where they roll a 20 foot long charcoal pit out for your to grill you own meat on; add a baked potato, baked beans and drink for $2.00. Sweet!
While cooking our grub we got to speak with many of the seasonal campers, as well as the owner.
This might have been the friendliest bunch of folks we have encountered so far. The owner made it a point to come say hello multiple times that evening. You could tell that he loved what he does, and builds relationships with his campers.
 That night following dinner there was also live music from some local bands and all of them were good. 

We spent the remainder of our night between hanging out around the fire, and taking in the live band. 
Just a fantastic night all around. Good food, good people, good atmosphere. 

While this season is over for us, this is camp ground I intend to stay at again next season. 

Amenities:
Pool, Stocked Fishing Pond, free DVD rental, Wi-Fi, Fitness Center *under construction, Good People. 


Positive: 
Rates ($32/night W/E), Staff, Woodsy Camping Feel, Friendly People, Loved the Camp Store
Negatives: 
Comfort Stations were clean but in dire need of update and repair

Knoebels Campground and Amusement Park

We have been hearing about Knoebel's for years from friends in family.   It's been on our "to do" list forever.  So when Rob started talking about actually buying a pop up last spring, his exact wish was, "I want to be camping in our pop up at Knoebel's for my birthday in June."  That was about early May and I didn't think it would happen.

Never under estimate a determined husband.

So June rolls around, we've got two camping weekends under our belt, and off we go to Knoebels.  Two concerns, would it be hard to pull the pop up up all those big hills/mountains?  (OK, I know most east coasters don't consider the Poconos hills mountains, but this Illinois raised mid westerner would disagree.....)  And there was no water hook up...that's a lot of water to haul, right?

Part of the draw of Knoebel's is that there is a great amusement park there with no admission.  That's right, you can walk right in, no gates, no fences, right from the campground.  You just buy tickets for the rides you want to ride.  Great money saver since I really don't ride much.

So anyway, Rob decides to take off  Friday so we can get there, and set up and take advantage of discount night.  You can ride all the rides you want from 6pm - 10pm for just $10. Had I been thinking, I would not have bought myself a pass, and just bought tickets for the two rides I think I rode....

We left timing wise, that we would get there pretty close to our 3:00 check in time.  The drive was pretty easy, the mountains being no trouble.  I tell you though, I will not miss that little "bump" the camper does sometimes to the Van.  If I had to recommend these things to anyone, I'd say no matter what your owner's manual says, tow these things only if you have a tow package.  I did read on a board that one owner said he really thought he was burning through his van at a quicker pace than if he didn't tow his pop up.

We found Knoebels pretty easily.  We stayed at the camp site that was right there on site.  There is not at all a lot of room to park to check in, so bigger rigs, beware. We actually couldn't figure out what to do with ourselves, but we finally found a spot to pull over.

It was not hard at all to find our spot using the map, but hold onto that map.  I lost it over the course of the weekend, and had a couple of long walks back because I couldn't find the short cut paths.

We were on "British Columbia" street.  At first I was upset because I didn't want to be right next to the restroom.  But it worked out well.  We were really kitty korner and couldn't see it at all, nor most of the foot traffic.  Most people walked on Manitoba ave.  And it turned out to be quite convenient.  They had a nice dish washing station that was quite handy since there was no running water at the sites.

While much closer to the amusement park, the "states" avenues were much more crowded together and more wooded - completely shaded.  Where we were was more open and had less trees.  There was plenty of open space for the kids to play.

Wooded

our site on British Columbia Ave

plenty of room to run and play.

I'm afraid I didn't take any front pictures of our campsite or of the restrooms.  The rest rooms were very clean and easy to use.  There were several outside entry private stalls that were co-ed.  I never had a problem with a dirty stall.  Then they also had your typical indoor restrooms with the rows of stalls and showers at the end.  The showers were free, although somewhat annoying.  You'd pull a cord and the water would run for about a minute.  But the pressure was good, it was nice and hot and the stalls were clean so I'll take it!

If you aren't close to the amusement park, there is a fun bus that goes around regularly to pick you up.  

It really did go around about every 20 minutes or so, very reliable.  We opted to walk most of the time, as we are not "sit around and wait" people.  The walk was pretty easy. Right at the entrance is a little playground.  To my knowledge, this is the only playground.  Kids enjoyed it.  Beware, it's not mulch, but rather sand.

I can't say enough good things about the amusement park.  There was something there for everyone.  There were plenty of fast scary roller coaster rides for the older kids, and plenty of smaller kiddie rides for Noah and lots of in between rides all three kids could ride together.

One interesting thing, Knoebel's has one of only 18 Merry go rounds with the old fashioned brass rings.    Too hard for kids, but it was fun watching the adults try for it. Beware, the merry-go-round goes *fast* and the brass ring dispenser is hard.  Rob banged his finger up pretty badly.

Overall, it has been our favorite place to camp all summer.  Points off for a very grumpy staff, no water and virtually no gluten free food options in the amusement park. But points added for clean, quiet sites, good rest rooms with an excellent amusement park right on site. 

My final grade:  A-.  Definitely recommend this campground to others.

It doesn't hurt that my kids said multiple times "can we camp here every time?"  Happy kids make for a happy weekend!

Sea Pines - thousand trails, NJ

I am extremely over due with this review, but I know I promised it to some people.  So before we changeover (more on that in future postings) I wanted to get this review out.  I know when I was looking, I could not find one single web link to pictures of Sea Pines.  Hopefully this review may help another family

So on with the show!

We went for the long memorial day weekend.  Now, we go out to the Jersey Shore all the time.  Rob's parents have a small place down in Sea Isle City - about 15 min from the campground.  But we just must have hit the worse possible time.  Despite the fact that we left about 2pm - we didn't get to the camground until about 8:00!  It should have taken us 2 1/2 - 3 hours tops.  In all the years we have been heading down, that was the worse traffic either of us has ever seen. With today's economy, it may be that more are staying local, so maybe that was it.  Who knows, just be advised, if you are not used to "shore traffic" it can have the potential for being brutal.

So we finally get to the campground about  8:00 as I said.  Unfortunately, there is only one long drive to get into the campground, so while we were finally there, we did have to wait an additional 25 minutes to check in.  There is a side drive that you can use a code to enter, but the driveway is single lane until about half way in.  So even if you are already checked in, you still might wait 15 min or so to get in if it's a busy check in night.

Once we got to the gate, they asked for our membership card.  We explained that we made reservations as non members as they simply asked for ID instead.  The Park ranger helping out said to just go pick a spot and come back and tell us where you are. (note, the farther in you go, the longer it takes you to report back...It took Rob a good 35 minutes to walk there and back)

We knew we wanted to stay away from cabins and seasonal rentals, given our experiences at Little Red Barn.  But we didn't want to be too far from the comfort stations.  We did find a fairly secluded quiet spot to fit our needs:

Of course this is the next morning when it was bright and sunny.  But Rob, on only our second trip out had to back the camper into a very very dark spot - yikes!   But he is already improving and getting better and better and maneuvering.  

We had hoped to be set up before dark but the long traffic really messed with our plans.  I was glad that I had precooked a lot of our meals for this trip and all I had to do was warm something up.  We were tired, it was hours after our normal dinner time and it was approaching bed time - and we still needed to set up - in the dark!  I highly recommend pre-cooking things like chicken breasts or ground beef.  Having access to quick meals really helps.

It went fairly smoothly.  We opted to leave the awning til morning.  It was really dark so we had no way of knowing we chose a spot without a fire ring or picnic table. So we just set up the bunks, bedding, kitchen etc warmed dinner on the stove and called it a night.

Review part - the restrooms were fairly clean.   There were plenty of stalls and showers.  Showers were big which was nice because I was able to bring Katelyn (6) in with me and could have brought Noah (3) if I needed to.  Downside?  They got REALLY hot when the toilets flushed.  I taught Katelyn to quick jump out of the water stream (yes the showers were that big) when she a flush go off. The women's room was really clean all the time,  but Rob said the men's room got nasty.  

Other downside?  When they cleaned the stations, it took a solid hour and no one was allowed in.  There was only one other comfort station all the way at the entrance which was a bit of a hike.  Not a problem for adults, but little three year old bladders?  Let's just say I was glad I brought the little potty chair! I have to say, it was weird taking the little bucket part to the staitons to empty and clean.  I was a little self conscious.  oh well, such is the life of a mom, right?  We wipe snotty noses and clean up poop!

Next morning, we were off to explore the grounds.  I found them quite lovely and more like real camping.  No open fields, no pavilions, just trees and other pop up, tents and RV's:

There seemed to be plenty of amenities.  I thought I had taken more pictures, but this is all I have.  They had pretty large laundry facilities, a bar/cub for adults only and of course a pool.  Pool was decent sized but pretty crowded.  I found it almost unusable because of the many very rowdy tween boys and their water guns.  I wish I had realized there was a lake then, because we would have headed over there, and the kids would have enjoyed it more.

Of course there was a camp store, but for the size of the camground, I was surprised at how little groceries they had. This was about it.  No worries on our part - we brought most of what we needed and planned a trip to Walmart for the rest.  But attached to the store they had several entertainment nooks for equipment rentals, games, tv, books etc That was nice although we really didn't need it being there for just three days. But for those staying a week, there were things like ping pong, shuffle board, a small minature gold course and activities.  On our way out Monday, they had organized a bike parade for the holiday!

One of the reasons we picked this campground was it's close proximity to the family beach house in Sea Isle City.  Every Memorial Day weekend, Rob's side of the family meets up for a big family picnic.  We always have a lot of fun and are disappointed to have to leave.  But it's a small house - there is just no room at the inn so to speak.

So this year, we were excited to be able to stay for the nice long weekend.  For Sat dinner, we invited Rob's parents to come have dinner at "our new place."  Upon waking Sat morning, we realized we were missing a key element - no picnic table! Hard to have people over to eat without anywhere to sit, right?!

It was simply too dark to see the night before but we realized that only about 60 or 70% of the spots had picnic tables, and as I said someone had "borrowed" our fire ring.  fire ring was easy - there were only two other campers on our whole street so we got a fire ring from another site, but no tables were nearby, and really who wants to drag a picnic table  across a camground?

We found we needed a few more things anyway, so off to the local Walmart to get some supplies.  We bought a portable camp table - I suspected this issue would probably occur from time to time, so  it seemed logical to have our own. Our camp chairs were starting to show their age, so we bought two more of those.  And while we were there - we found the perfect compliment to my flamingo lights.... palm trees with more flamingoes - we loved them! 

You can see the camp table in the background there -  so helpful when preparing food, and of course I added a little carpet.  Makes it homier and helps keep the camper cleaner.  I have to say in general, setting up an outdoor galley is extremely helpful. Purchasing that table was a good decision. After this trip, we decided to get a real refrigerator and it has already made all the difference, too (I will post more about that on our Knoebels trip from June -  coming soon).

Dinner was yum. Kept it simple with hamburgers on our reversible camp griddle (love that thing - got it at Walmart in the grills section for $11), chips, fruit salad and corn cooked in the fire pit ashes.

Saturday night, another down side to this campground - ticks.  Rob pulled about 4 ticks off himself throughout the day, and both Josh and Katelyn had a a couple upon inspection that night.  Noah and I escaped somehow.  But because the ground is very woody - sandy dirt to be precise, the ticks were plentiful.  So be prepared with tick repelling spray and check everyone in your family carefully every night.

Sunday we did not spend at the campground as we were at the family picnic all day.  As usual, it was lots of fun; yummy picnic and seafood, beach time and a magic show put on by Josh and cousin Angus. 

And as you can see, we spent the evening at the amusement pier in Sea Isle City.  Ocean City is about 1/2 hour north Rt 9 and has two more amusement piers, beach, and a giant boardwalk.  It is well worth a visit.  And just south of the campground is a plethera of things to do as well, Cape May has a lovely shopping district and of course the light house - you can climb all the way to the top.  And within minutes of  Sea Pines is the Cape May County Zoo.  It's a national park so they just ask for a donation as your drive in - just give what you can.  There's a huge playground, a handful of rides as well as a really lovely and quite good zoo - feeding the animals is always a favorite.  Our family always enjoys our visits there.

Saturday when we got back, although it was late, the kids still talked us into lighting the fire for some more s'mores.  Tell me, will they ever get bored with eating s'mores?  I'm thinking no....

Monday was a lazy day.  Check out time was noon, so obviously there wasn't time for much.  It was at this time that we unfortunately discovered the lake.  Darn!  Oh well, we'll catch it next year, right?  But it was lovely and we couldn't help but at least stick our toes in!

Packing up was a little longer this time because we had bought the additional gear, but already we are in a groove.  I don't know if this is a considered a long time or not, but we can pack up everything -  food, linens, toys, children,  dog, awning, drop the camper and hitch it - in about 1 hour 15min.  Maybe if given the chance, we could do it quicker, but we're doing alright.  To say we already love camping would be an understatement.  The kids ask on a regular basis, "Can we go camping this weekend?"

Final grade: B

The downsides was the lack of picnic tables, awful check in process and the ticks.  But what made up for it was the atmosphere.  It was true camping, the staff was nice and the other campers were fantastic. I just felt at ease there which in my book makes up for the negatives. Rob absolutely hated all the ticks, but had we been better prepared with the right bug repellent, this would not have been as big an issue. 

(as you can see, our "street" was deserted - and this on a 3 day holiday weekend.  Obviously spaces closer to the comfort station were much more crowded)

So we definitely plan on  returning for next year's picnic. Hope this helps someone. Please feel free to ask questions in the comments and I will do my best to answer.

Happy camping!!!

Little Red Barn Campground, Quakertown, PA - my review

For our test run out, I wanted to a place close to home.  My only requirements were that it was a pet friendly site, and that it had water and electric hook up, since we wanted to test all that out.


I looked through all the brochures that Media Camping Center gave us, and decided on the Little Red Barn campground in Quakertown, PA.  It was about 43 minutes away.  Perfect.

I had to send a reservation request in via the website.  It was easy enough to complete and they called back within 45 minutes to make the arrangements.  She was very friendly and courteous.


Upon check in, I again found them to be helpful and courteous.  She had about 10 spots back to back in one area and she told us to just pick one that looked good to us.  She gave us a map which also had a code for the free wifi. (We had wondered about that as there is no mention I can find on the website).


We found the site easy enough.  Both the water and electric were close to our spot and there was a fire ring and movable picnic table.  The campground was fairly quiet and peaceful.


Unfortunately, we had a lovely view of.... the activities pavilion.

Upon walking around the entire campground, we found that all the lovely wooded spots were given to the all season guests or the tent campers (no electric, or water and a good distance from the comfort station).  The rest of were forced to look at each other's rigs or the pavilion.  The class C's, travel trailers, motor coaches and the single 5th wheel were all basically on top of each other.  Not very "campish" to me.


The pool was still closed but ready to go - it looked like it was very nice and would be fun to hang out in.  They also advertised a hayride at 6:00 with a movie night in the pavilion at 7:00.  The movie didn't appear to run and the 6:00 hayride was a miss for us.  Check in is at 3:00.  By 6:00, we were ready for dinner, and didn't want to wait til after.  I probably would have done the hayride a bit later if it was offered.


The comfort stations included about 4 bathroom stalls, several sinks with plenty of mirrors and plugs to get ready.  There were two enclosed showers as well.  I found them to be clean every time I used them. However, there was only one and the very front edge of the property.  They did have a port-a-potty at the edge of the tent camping area but that was it.


We walked through the pavillion which appeared to be a fun place to hang out when it's open...ping pong, a tv area, movie area, some toys and books.  The game room near the office was appealing to the kids too.  The camp store looked to be fully stocked with plenty of dry goods, as well as a refrigerated case with eggs, bacon, milk etc...

The playground was also nice and big for the kids.  It had this play set, another  bank of swings and a large sandbox - easily 10 x 10.  And a nice open field for the kids to run - a volleyball net was set up on one side.

They used it several times until we had an incident Sunday morning.  Some locals/all season kids were clearly used to this being "their turf" and were unwilling to share.  One little boy ran from swing to swing saying "mine" and would not allow my three year old to get on.  Nothing was said to him.  The 15 year old sent to "watch them" did nothing to control their bad behavior, but rather spent the entire time swinging as high as she could.  


Finally one of the kids got off and my waiting 8 year old could have a turn.  After a few minutes, the boy that had gotten off, about 4-5 years old took a running start and leaped onto my son who was actively swinging at the time.  He leapt on top of him, knocked him off and proceeded to stay sitting/standing on top of him pinning him to the ground.  The other kids including the "babysitter" either laughed or did nothing.   I immediately went over and (loudly) reprimanded the kid and told him to get off my son. Did I yell?  Maybe, but honestly not that loud.  Trust me, I can yell loudly at my children when I want to and this was not it.  I then looked at the other kids and told them then needed to learn some manners.  We opted to then leave the playground.  There was no point in trying to play while those kids were there.


About 10 minutes later, I have the kids settled in the camper taking a quiet  break with a movie when I happen to catch movement outside under our canopy.


I go out to see the naughty kids from the playground trying to play with our toys and an angry grandma. She wanted to know why I yelled at her kids.  I explained what her kids did (the running leap, the not sharing etc) and she then tried to argue with me about how she had adult witnesses about what really happened yadda yadda yadda.  The woman was completely irrational and unreasonable and refused to leave our campsite. She felt her kids did nothing wrong and that I had no right to yell at them.  It did not matter to her that my kid got hurt.


I told her I refused to discuss it with her ( I was actually a little afraid since Rob was gone with the van)  and said I'm going to management.  We walked up to the office, she lingered outside trying to find her adult witnesses and I went into the office.  I explained to the staff what happened, and that this women was harassing me and I just wanted to be left alone.  Then the women comes in and starts trying to fight with me again.  I again say, we just wanted to be left alone and that we would be gone by the 1:00 check out. As I was leaving I said if she came back to the site I would directly call the police.


I didn't bother to stick around to see what they would say to her, but I had a strong suspicion it went something like "don't worry about it, it's all over, they are just weekend people" or something to that effect.  Their own rules say that " Parents are responsible for children at all times. Please do not leave children unattended."  But clearly they do not enforce this.  And I find it incredible that it was OK for this woman to invade our space.


And frankly the morning was ruined.  I was afraid she would come back and do something to us or our campsite.  the kids wanted drinks but I told them no, because I didn't want to have to leave to go to the comfort station.


So while the grounds were clean and the amenities pleasant, the attitude toward not full timers was apparent. Between that and the lousy views, my grade is less than average.  I would not recommend this site for families.


Final grade:  C-

Our Inaugural trip

As I started this blog Friday, and I talked about lasting only 30 hours on our last trek into camping...I started to get nervous.  We have a three day trip planned soon.  Did we really want to get our feet wet (oh, please, let it not be raining our first trip out!) on a three day trip?  Several hours from home?

I mean we are camping newbies.  We really don't know much, just what I could read off of Pop up portal in three days... I still wasn't entirely sure what we were getting ourselves into!

So looking at our calendar, I figured out we could go out Sat afternoon, set up, make dinner then come home.  Rob and I play in a worship band for our church and we needed to be back Sunday morning. I asked Rob and he said, let's do overnight.  We can get up early, get to church and get back before the 1:00 pm check out time.

I secretly thought he was kind of crazy, but my desire to test things out won out over my husband's craziness.  So I booked the night at Little Red Barn Campgrounds in Quakertown, PA. It was only 45 min away, even closer to my dad's should any emergency pop up (no pun?  pup? intended).

I have to say, it went as well as about we  expected. Definitely lessons learned, but nothing major we couldn't handle.  We felt comfortable setting up, tried out some of our "mods" on a trial basis and I trepidatiously inched into the world of campground cooking. And Rob got to practice backing up with the pop up hitched more.... thanks to an experienced camper named Buzz who hung out and gave advice where he could.

Setting up wasn't too bad.  First blunder?  Stacking our firewood just inside the door.  Before we could do anything, we had to move all the firewood out.  After that, it was all about getting organized:

 

It took us a relatively short time to organize, hook up and set up.  The kids had their shelf which was a fun surprise for them - I filled it with toys!  And their hanging "closet" worked beautifully.  I'm pretty sure I can fit a second one in there for shoes. I had stored the outside lights in a basket which then became a handy toothbrush/toothpaste/fluoride rinse caddy.

We opted to leave the dinette down, as you can see, to use kind of like a couch.  The 5 of us won't fit around the table, so this was a better option for us.  The kids could sit and watch a movie, or play and be out of the way while we worked.

The "adult" side was pretty easy to organize too.  We added our own shelf to store our clothing - the soft bags we un-packed went under the dinette/couch to be out of the way.  I don't have a hanging pantry yet, but that is on our list of "mods" to get started on soon.

As I suspected, having things stored in boxes sitting around on counters made me nuts.  So we have to decide if we will hang a pantry, shelves or add sterilite drawer caddies to store our dry goods.

I was pleasantly surprised at how patient and well behaved the kids were while setting up.  Josh wanted to be involved with all the set up, and so we let him work with us.  Noah and Katelyn sat patiently just enjoying being outdoors.

With the inside organized, we then needed to set up water, electric and the stove.  The stove was the easiest.  It went right on, and I had no problems cooking:

 

We initially thought the water wasn't working....turns out, we were pushing the lever up instead of down.  I did take Bob's ( our sales guy) advice and get a rolling blue cooler for our sink to drain into.  Worked beautifully.  However, the brand new water filter shattered upon installation so I was really glad I had brought "back up" bottled water.  While Rob said the water tasted fine, I am a stickler about that - can't stand well water!  So I enjoyed having tasteless water!

Last was electric.  There was a box on a tree that we needed to plug into.  Again, on Bob the sales's advice, he said to buy this long 25 foot essentially extension cord (for campers, not the household variety) and we were pleased we did.  He said there's nothing worse than being a foot or so shy of plugging in.  He was right - we were about 3 feet shy and the extension cord was perfect. 

So we go into the camper, turn on the lights...nothing.  Huh?  What were we missing? I admit I panicked if just for a moment.  Was our new camper already broken?  Was this a mistake?  Rob calm as ever goes back out to the box in the tree and takes a look.  Turns out it's not plugged in all the way.  After that, perfect.  Hooray!  We had lights and air conditioning.

OK, so far so good....Camper is set up, we have power, water, a place to sleep, a way to cook....what are we missing?  I know there's something.  What could it be...... Oh I know.  Flamingo lights!

I mean what self respecting camper can hold their heads up proud without something like bright pink flamingo lights adorning their abode?

So after some learning curves, we figured out how to get the awning up and voila! Flamingo lights!

So there you have it, we're all set up.  Like I said, we did fairly well.  We did forget a couple of things...I forgot the regular graham crackers, all I had was gluten free.  That's OK.  Kids were completely satisfied stuffing marshmallows and chocolate in their mouths.  In fact, I put the very first marshmallow on Noah's stick, and by the time I got the other kids set, I found this:

Yep!  Never even made it into the fire. Eventually he figured out he liked roasted marshmallows too.  All three kids are a "toasted" preference, not burned like their mom likes!

Other items I forgot....some kind of laundry hamper would have been helpful, a step stool would have been nice when putting up the awning, a nightlight for my scared-of-the-dark kids, a 2 x 4 piece of wood....the plot we were on was not level so even with the camper down in front as much as it could go, we still weren't quite level.  Our new friend Buzz advised us to bring 2 x 4's for these scenarios.

What else?  I forgot a washing pan...the sink in the camper is just a tad small for washing dishes.  And frankly, I think I'd rather dump and clean as I go rather than deal with the "grey water" container at the end.  While not forgotten, we found that Command hooks would have been helpful to hang on the front of the stove for a pot holder and a couple of utensils....  and a potty chair.

Oh yes, a potty chair while I thought not necessary really is.  We figured out too late that 3  year old Noah, couldn't get out of the end bunk by himself.  So first, I awoke around 2 am to find he peed all over his and Josh's bunk...Move Josh to dinette with KAtelyn, move Noah into bed with Rob and I.  About 6:30 rolls around and I awoke to Noah peeing on me and our bed!

Uggggghhhhhh!

So he will be sleeping on the low to the found dinette and his little potty training chair will accompany us. Fortunately, having potty trained three kids in the last 8 years, I know how to clean mattresses.  The bunks are drying as I type this!

The only other issue worth mentioning is the cold.  I felt like I had a lot of blankets and such, but once it hit 48 degrees, we got really cold. The kind of cold that wakes you up and your nose is cold, cold.  The furnace is not working and we don't have a ceramic space heater yet.  So next time, if it's still scheduled to go below 50, I will have either a space heater or bring the sleep bags.

And that was our trip. We lasted more than 30  hours.  No one fell in a lake.  No one caught fire and we had fun.  The kids LOVED it.

I did end up missing church.  Having gotten up several times in the night (did I mention the "Mommy, there's a spider in my bed?" episodes?) I was just wiped.  And dirty. And icky.  I was simply NOT going to church to stand up in front of everyone on the worship team!  Rob went though, while the kids and I stayed back to sit quietly (OK, maybe not so quietly - see tomorrow's review of the campsite) and to make a quick lunch before we started packing up.  I found I could even start a fire without Rob - hooray!.

Tomorrow, I'll share my thoughts about the campground, and whether or I would, or would not recommend it to other families.

Kamping with our Kids

And so it begins.

This week, Rob and I bought our first Pop up camper.  It's not new, but new to us.  It's a 1993 Jayco Jay feather 1006.

We paid $3000 which I think was a fair price.  It's clean, doesn't need any renovating and best of all - it has an air conditioner!

Seriously?  AC?  Talk about being spoiled.  As I kid, I spent many many summers either in a tent or at least 3 different used pop ups my family owned.  I remember sweltering in the Florida heat - we went down every year during the summer to visit my grandmother....and it was alway hot.

I mean, there is nothing worse than trying to sleep in 95 degree heat, right?  They say history repeats itself and once again I am finding myself going down to FLorida in the summer after school gets out.  We are big big Disney fans (we go once or twice a year depending on how far our Disney Vacation club points can get us).  So AC was an absolute must for me.  I didn't care what else it had or didn't have, as long as it had AC.  I can get around pretty much any other obstacle.

So we picked up our new to us camper, drove it home, and set it up in our driveway.

We have our first reservation already so I must quickly get "our house in order" as it were.  We need bedding, cooking supplies, a clothesline, a garbage can, etc...and of course, with three kids 8, 6 and 3.....some toys to bring along. 

We are a gluten free family as well, so  most of those fun camping foods are out or at least need to be modified.  I need to plan out the meals well ahead...I'm guessing for instance, that the campsite sundries store will NOT have gluten free bread.  Just a hunch.

So  we are off and running.  I suspect while we have cub scouts, circus tickets and general yard work to do this weekend, we will also spend a significant amount of time getting ready for our first trip!

Any advice to offer for this first time Kamping with our Kids is welcome!