Sometime in my pregnancy I decided camping would be a fun vacation for our first family of 5 vacation . . . and despite my doubts as the trip got closer - it was FUN! You should go camping!
This past week we headed to Lake Ouachita State Park near Hot Springs, AR for some quality family time. There were times that were stressful but overall it was a lot of fun and we made some great memories!
My family camped every year for as long as I can remember and we all went camping together two years ago, but this was our first solo Brown family camping trip. Since I'd been camping numerous times I had a good idea of what to bring. I had all our suppers planned and our meats either pre-cooked or marinated for easy grilling and no-fuss clean up. I'm used to camping with no electric or running water so staying in a state park with water & electric hook-ups was a nice little luxury!
The first night, we were all set up and the boys were playing and we had chili by the fire and we made s'mores and the trip was off to a perfect start . . . until the next morning when we woke up to 31 degree temps and rain! We were FREEZING! My parent's pop up camper, that we had borrowed, had a heater but it had never been used and we didn't know how to work it! We called my parents in Colorado and they didn't know how to use it either. In desperation I called my sister and said "please find us a cabin!! the baby is freezing!" She found us a rustic 1 bedroom cabin about 10 miles away and we abandoned camping for two nights!
During that time we went to Magic Screams (Magic Springs at Halloween) and to the Mid-America Science Museum.
On Monday, when the rain went away and the sun reappeared we headed back to our humble little campsite! The boys were so happy to be back! The rest of our trip we hiked and hung out and got dirty and mined for quartz crystal and lots of other fun family things! I enjoyed our little trip and my precious family! We will definitely camp again because if I survived with a 5 month old and two dirty little boys then I can do anything!
