Thoughts Out Loud: Family Camping

Some of my most favorite childhood memories growing up were of camping - Lost Maples, Enchanted Rock, Big Bend, and Inks Lake to name a few. I distinctly remember a very windy and very wet experience down on Mustang Island in where our tent was pretty much ripped out of the ground from the force of the wind during a storm. Scary at the time, maybe, but it's left a pretty awesome memory for me!

When Jeff and I married and started discussing having kids and what was important for us to have them experience, camping was one of my main priorities. I want my kids to appreciate the outdoors and most importantly I hope they'll build memories that I have of quality family time together.

Our first camping experience with KT was when she was 10 months old. It was November and we headed to Lost Maples State Natural Area with our tent and, in retrospect, not enough firewood. For having such a young child with us, the probability of us having a rough time was pretty high. But, KT was a super trooper and hardly made a peep during the wee quiet hours of a community group camping area. I was inspired.

Time was not however. Between job responsibilities and our busy life, we never made time for another trip. Until Mother's Day Weekend 2013. I begged Jeff to camp and made reservations well ahead of time. We packed up the tent, borrowed some cots, bought enough s'mores supplies for a family of 12 and headed out to Perdenales Falls State Park, just the three of us.

Our site - loved the lights Jeff remembered to pack.

And... we had a blast! We only did one night, which in hindsight I wish we went longer, but what fun. We hiked, we roasted hot dogs, we made s'mores, and made s'mores, and made more s'mores. We set up our screened tent completely wrong and noticed halfway through the trip and made a quick fix to remedy (who knew those things were so complicated?). We brought PLENTY of firewood and after KT went down, Jeff and I just sat around the fire together, completely content to just talk. It was awesome.

One of my favorites snaps from the weekend - Daddy's girl.

Well mostly awesome. Aside from the sleeping situation which included a broken cot, a restless 3 year old, and what I think was a raccoon making some sort of "chirping" noise at 2:30 a.m...... But other than those things, it went awesome.

I made sure to get in front of the camera too - eek!

Bubbles on camping trips are a must. KT trying to pop them with the tent poles.

On the following Sunday, we headed up to Longhorn Cavern State Park to visit their caves. I had seen pictures on the tpwd site and was totally tempted. We took a 2 hour tour and KT handled it like a champ - even when the guide turned out the lights so we could "experience" what total pitch black darkness felt like. Maybe I was more scared then her.