Tomorrow my husband and I will be taking LittleM camping for the weekend. This will be her second trip but what makes it even more exciting is that friends of ours with their two little girls (who are also friends of LittleM’s) will be going with us!
Tonight will be the big pack where we get everything together, pack as much as we can in the car, and get everything else ready to grab and go when my husband gets off of work on Friday.
LittleM is deep in her princess phase where she refuses to wear anything that is not a dress so I have been prepping her for 2 weeks that this weekend she will have to wear pants. I want her to be warm enough and protected as we hike, camp, and explore the local caves near where we’re camping.
We’re going to be camping near the Crystal Caves in Pennsylvania so I can’t wait to check them out. I have never been in a cave before and there is only one in Delaware that you can’t visit anymore because it’s on private property.
Is there anything that you think is imperative to bring on a camping trip? Anything that you can’t live without? I would love to hear what you think we should bring in the comments!
Well, we made it. LittleM’s first camping adventure ended with her asking “When can we camp again?” so we must have done something right.
This weekend our adventure took us a little over 2 hours away to Assateague Island National Park in Maryland. We had been worried all week because the weather kept changing from Thunderstorms, to rain, to partly cloudy, and back again. We made the decision to go, and while there was no rain, the weathermen really let us down with the temperature. It was far colder than predicted, and while we were prepared with most things, it really put a damper on things. Overall it was fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone, and my husband has already asked to go back this summer.
We chose the Bay side to camp on (which I would recommend) because it had more cover than the ocean side. This was our first campsite….Yes, first. It was beautiful but became a wind tunnel later in the day, making us freeze even more. We moved on site over and it was much nicer.
Almost immediately we were greeted by ponies. It was amazing. And then scary. See how the pony get closer in each photograph? Yeah, I have no more pictures after this because we were sitting at the picnic table eating lunch and I had to move to the other side. Then I had to take all the food and put it in the car to make the pony lose interest because he was reaching over the table to try to get our lunch out of our hands and off our plates. Maybe he hadn’t had his yearly requirement of PB&Js and Dorito chips?
It really was amazing to be so close to this wild ponies and be on their turf though. Within arms reach was a little close for me though. The Park has signs and pictures warning you to stay 10 feet away from the ponies, not to make any fast movements around them, and what can happen to humans when they scare or get too close the ponies. It was quite an experience though and a good story for us to tell!
Assateague has a few short trails to walk to enjoy the many different sides of the park. Here’s LittleM being the “Line Leader” on our hike. Always has to be in front. Wonder where that came from? Also a beautiful view from the trail walk.
The rest of the night was spent making dinner, enjoying s’mores (Yay S’Mores!), and trying to fit the 3 of us on the air mattress in the tent together. It was fantastic.
We decided to skip making breakfast at the campsite because it was pretty chilly out, damp, and foggy. We got everything packed up and hit the road by 8:30. McDonald’s was lovely. LittleM made the people next to us laugh by yelling loudly that she had to poop after she was finished her hotcakes. Then we decided to stop in Dover on our way home to go to the Dover Air Mobility Command Museum. It was nice to finally stop there to let LittleM check it out, a little disappointing though because they didn’t have all the airplanes open outside to go inside. LittleM got to pretend to fly and walk into 2 cargo planes to see how large these things are that move our troops and supplies around. I got my history geek fix too.
When we finally got home after picking up our dog from my brother’s house, we unpacked the car. We made lunch, I did the dishes and then promptly fell asleep on the couch. It was a great weekend. I hope you had an adventure this weekend too!
This weekend is St. Patrick’s Day. I remember the days of partying at the bar until last call. Getting anything and everything green that I could find, including necklaces, earrings, shirts, and makeup. Now I have trouble staying up past 10pm most nights. I’m old.
This year I was able to convince my husband (who had a much harder time giving up St. Patrick’s Day partytime) to give it up altogether and take LittleM camping for the first time! We have spent the week checking all of our gear, purchasing some new things, getting LittleM her first sleeping bag (in pink of course), etc.
Because of that, I did not have a lot of time to pull together a lot of things to do this weekend. But, here are a few things.
Barnes and Noble at the Christiana Mall is having a St. Patrick’s Day Storytime with Green Eggs and Ham at 11AM on Saturday.
$1 admission to Hagley Museum on Saturday. Fantastic place to visit with kids. LOTS of hands-on activities. There is also a picnic area onsite to bring a packed lunch. Enjoy the weather tomorrow at a beautiful, fun place!
Delaware Museum of Natural History has their newConservation Quest for kids to explore energy. Ticket prices are $9 for adults, $7 for children.
I hope you have a great weekend and I can’t wait to share our camping adventure with you!
I am sad to report that the grass has not started to grow yet. I’m a little worried. I may need to buy a little piece of sod and cut it to the size of the plastic container so LittleM can wake up one morning to miracle grass. Surprise! We have been able to grow something though in another pot. There are about 6 daisy sprouts that we planted last week peaking out in another pot. I may have to figure out how to transfer them though because they may end up killing each other in the one small pot. Or they may just realize that I’m the one trying to take care of them and give up on their own. Black thumb reestablished.
The husband and I have decided to start LittleM on a chore chart. If you Google “Chore Chart for Kids,” you come up with 322,000 results in 0.25 seconds. In all that, I couldn’t find one that exactly fit what I wanted. Me being my difficult self. So, I hoped on Word and created a chart for myself for Saturday through Friday including 4 chores. Since LittleM is almost 4, I have heard that it’s good to give 1 chore per year old. I think she can handle it. I have attached my chore chart that I created, including pictures to represent everything since LittleM can’t read yet. Click for chore chart. The four chores I have are: feed the dog, take your dishes to the sink, clean up your toys before bed, and put dirty clothes into the laundry basket.
Once I created the document I started thinking how I really didn’t want to constantly print copies of this every week and buy tons of stickers to use on it. You know what that means! Craft Project and a trip to Joann Fabrics!
In the end, this is only going to cost me $4.60 because I had everything I need at my house in my craft hoard except for the things to use as the stickers. Here is everything that I need. ( I will post pictures next time of the completed project because of a snafu that I had with one of the supplies.)
Supplies: The printed chart, laminating sheets, magnet tape, scissors to cut the tape, felt buttons, glue gun with glue sticks.
I laminated the sheet so I can put one on the refrigerator and keep reusing it. I have a roll of magnet tape but apparently I haven’t used it in so long that the glue backing is no longer sticky. Whoops. That’s where the extra time and glue gun comes in. It’s going to take me a while to glue all the magnets onto the felt buttons. At Joann Fabrics I found adorable Favorite Findings Pretty Posies buttons for $2.29 per pack, and I had to buy 2 packs.
How cute and girlie are these?! LittleM is going to love them!
So the idea is, whenever LittleM completes her chores, she’ll put one of the flowers on the chart to show that she is working with us and doing her part.
The biggest issue that the husband and I have right now is what do you give as an incentive for her to comply with these things that we are asking her to do? Do we start an allowance with her already (say 5 or 10 cents for every flower/sticker she gets) or do we say she gets a treat with the family over the weekend is she gets all 28 stars (7 days in the week x 4 chores a day)? If anyone has any input or experience, we would love to hear it!
We’re also planning to take LittleM on her first camping trip this weekend. This is going to be quite an adventure and I can’t wait to tell you about it next week! Tomorrow I’ll post some of the great events happening in Delaware this weekend, but we’re hitting the road! Hope your adventure is fantastic!
bluehenmomma 