Schools Out, Tents Out

I actually like camping.

I remember liking it even as a kid, even though our trips were scaringly memorable.

My kids love to hear about the time we went camping as a family on my uncle’s property.

The grass was head high and we had convinced ourselves we had seen a bear on one of our ‘hikes’.

Our toilet was a bucket.

I had on feet pjamas and it was so cold and I was scared of peeing in a bucket so I wet all over myself.

Six of us kids were crammed into a tent.

Our parents and the babies were sleeping in the bed of our campered truck.

Us younger kids were soon deserted by our heroic older sisters who were 100% certain that a bear/coyote/bobcat/squirrel was circling our tent.

All of us ended up in the back of the truck.

The next morning we awoke cold and tired but decided to revive our spirits with a walk around the land.

We spotted water and sand in the distance and soon found ourselves on a beach completely littered

with dead fish.

Glass Castle stuff, right?

Our first camping trip of the summer is pretty tame in comaprison.

Favorable weather, good food, sands between our toes {and bum cheeks for a select few}, and as it would turn out, an escape from the 100 degree heat inland.

I think the worst part is the night before I was buying brand new tennis shoes for the girls.

To go camping in!

They had completely worn through theirs to the point that socks and soles were visible.

Bryce accumulated some kites over the past year and if you’re losing sleep at night in your desire to be an expert kite flyer, the beach is the place for that dream to come true.

Seriously, even Libby managed it.

Beaches are weird, right?

Like let’s pick up the dead carcasses, and not even dead, murdered carcasses of sea life that has been washed ashore, with our bare hands, and collect it, and take it home in the car and stash it in our treasure box.

This week is pretty tame here.

The older girls are up visiting grandparents and cousins for the week, leaving just the youngest three.

Half as many kids is twice as easy.

#kidmath

Katie