• explore,  the learning arts

    Morning wanders…

    walk morningstar construction astonished berries morningsun hand sidewalk

    We try to make it outside for a walk most mornings. We go wherever our feet take us- lately, our first stop is where they are upgrading the drainage for our neighborhood. The kids love watching the excavator and bulldozer at work. Sometimes the wander is short, sometimes long. Invariably a few treasures make their way home in children’s pockets. All in all, a great way to start the day.

  • explore,  the home arts,  the kitchen arts

    Camp Messicrew…

     rivereggsncoffeegrapegrintoocool Camping with kids is no easy feat at first; camping with a large family makes it even more complex. If your family is interested in camping and you’ve never done it before, I strongly suggest a dry run in a back yard or at a camp ground near to your house (under an hour away, tops). You’ll need this practice run to iron out all the bumps, catch what you didn’t remember on your packing list, and get a good idea of just how long it takes to set up camp. Now, I’m going to be totally honest here. While we are seasoned enough campers, we rarely ever camp in what’s called a primitive camp site. At a primitive camp area there are no showers or bath houses, no running water, and no electricity. We probably could but at this stage in our life it would add such an extra layer of stress to the experience that it just isn’t worth it. We always stay in a state park area. We are lucky to have many beautiful, award-winning options in our state, and all of these parks have tent sites that have access to electricity and running water, with a bath house nearby. Especially now that we are travelling with kids with chronic medical needs, having those ‘comforts of home’ are very necessary. If that’s how you choose to camp, too, you’ll find the amount of things you actually need is greatly reduced.

    Our tent is actually not a tent- it’s a teepee that has an eighteen foot diameter at the bottom. It easily sleeps our entire family (even with mom and dad on an airbed) and could fit probably four or five more people if the need arises. It is much easier to set up than your typical modern tent with all the bendy poles. It is simply a matter of laying it out, extending the center pole, and tying it down. It goes up in about ten minutes, versus the half hour to forty-five minutes of your typical room tent. We’ve made people rather jealous as they’ve watched us pull in, set up camp, and get down to business while they are still wrestling with those cuss-making bendy pole tents. We get a lot of questions about it!

    Everyone has their own sleeping bag, and yes, mom and dad get an airbed that blows up via the van’s cigarette lighter. It is so worth it. I’m all for roughing it, but when parents need to be on top of their game for everyone to have a great time, an airbed is a must for good sleep. No uncomfortable no-sleep nights rolling over and over again on top of rocky soil.

    We carry a camp stove with us, plus the propane to run it. Three propane lanterns light the camp space. We usually bring our cast iron dutch oven and our cast iron skillet, plus a percolator for coffee. Don’t forget a large metal serving spoon and your kitchen knives (which we stick in a traveling block of foam). Depending on the trip we either take all paper products or use our camp dishes, which are metal enamelware. That is worth the investment- we’ve used ours for years and they are far more useful in many cases than paper products. Just remember that you have to wash them and bring a small bottle of dish washing soap.

    Pretty much every camp site we’ve ever been to has a six to eight foot wooden picnic table. I can’t imagine a place that wouldn’t have a table, but obviously if you’re headed someplace that doesn’t, you’d have to prepare for that with a small folding table or the like. (Remember that hot propane stoves and plastic tables don’t mix, so make it metal!) Because of that, we only travel with two adult folding chairs versus chairs for the whole family. I set the camp stove at one end of the picnic table, tuck the cooler underneath, and this becomes the kitchen area. The kids have plenty of room to sit and spread out along the benches, and then James and I usually pull our camp chairs up to the non-kitchen end of the picnic table and we dig in to our meals.

    Beyond on that, there’s not much else we take with us. We carry a toughneck tub that has lots of camping odds and ends (stuff to repair the tent, extra stakes, an extra tarp, paracord, and more). We use the lid of that for keeping dishes to be washed, and then walk down to the bath house to take care of that. Most bath houses have a sink outside just for this purpose.

    As food goes, we’ve found it is far preferable to think through the meals prior to the trip and meal plan- some meals are pre-cooked and then frozen. Sometimes we take the easy way out (obviously kind of rare now) if we know that there is a pizza place like Little Caesars near the State Park. The less food we have to take with us and keep cold, the better. There are certain places we stay that we know have a grocery store nearby, and we don’t get the things we need for meals until we get there. We only keep what we absolutely have to in the cooler and keep it heavily iced. Most camp stores have milk and eggs, in our experience, for example, so we rarely carry those with us. We might be paying a premium price to purchase them there, but we find it well worth the extra cents not to have mess with the keeping them properly cold in the cooler.

    When it comes to kids and camping, realize they absolutely are going to get dirty. If we are just camping and not traveling anywhere else, I only take one outfit and one set of long pajamas for each kid. The outfit and the pajamas get progressively dirtier, till the day we leave. I have them take a good bath the morning we leave, and then trundle them into a clean outfit that has stayed hidden in the van. (So really two outfits+pajamas.) Otherwise it’s just an exercise in maddness. I make sure the kids have their long pant pajamas and sweatshirts because the nights get cool. (Cool sunglasses not necessary, but awfully cute!)

    The whole point of camping is to get outside and spend some good, fun time with your family. Whatever makes that easier and more enjoyable? Go for it! Don’t get locked into the idea that camping has to be done just so. If it’s difficult and hard you won’t want to do it again. Find what works for your family, and you might find you get a bit addicted to it!

  • explore

    Grandview Nature Preserve

    walkdriftwood eggcase horseshoe labyrinth marshsun photo 3 seagrass shoreline sunsetEverybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

    – John Muir

    Yesterday was one of those teasing days that Lady Virginia likes to throw about from time to time- absolutely beautiful weather, about sixty degrees, and sunny. Today we’re supposed to be prepping for a snow storm and sub zero temperatures. But yesterday. Yesterday was gorgeous.

    We ventured out to this little tucked away jewel with the grandparents. It’s a trail that leads through a marsh and then out on to an amazing old natural beach- you can still see the old cypress stands on the shoreline. We wandered and walked and scrambled over the dunes and brought plenty of treasures home to look up in our nature books.

    When my husband and I first met, we spent most of our time out of doors hiking through the mountains near our college- fact was, you could barely get us indoors. We fully expected that as we got married and children came along, this would continue, but somehow it didn’t. I’ve thought about this more than once since moving down here. Most of the nature preserves were a drive and a half for us up there in Tennessee. Not only that, but as lovely as our mountain neighborhoods were, there were no proper sidewalks. And children. Six children. Six children that took half an hour to march out a door. We rarely walked the neighborhoods (so dangerous with the hills and lots of young short children with us and not enough hands) and we maybe got to the local park about once a month. It wasn’t what we wanted but it was all we could do.

    We love our neighborhood so much. The park is a short walk from our house, and the entire neighborhood is walking friendly. There are more than four local nature preserves within five to ten miles of our home. So this dream we’ve always had for our family- to get out of doors as often as possible- finally happening. Everyday. At least once a day we walk, and more often than not, we’re out at the park or exploring the preserves around here. Truly a gift.