Last summer, I had big plans on one of our family camping trips. A friend had told me that as she struggled with raising her teen son, she realized she had never talked to him about values. She demonstrates her values to him through her actions, but a lot of times it’s the things we … Continue reading We talked to our kids about values
Rain rattled the tent last night and pinged on an overturned cook pot. The past few times we camped it stormed the first night and I felt panicky as I lay down to sleep, breathing deep to calm myself then feeling like I couldn’t get enough air, even though we were outside where there is … Continue reading Notes from a morning in the mountains
We wanted to take the kids stargazing, but instead drove into clouds. “Please don’t drive us over a cliff, Dad!” Our son was terrified. The fog was thick on the dark, empty road. Our two beams of light barely cut the cloud enough to show lines on the road in front of us. My husband … Continue reading We drove into clouds
Unlike the praline catastrophe, where I was able to save the candy, my attempt at a campfire blueberry crisp was a spectacular failure from which there was no recovery. Two weeks and a dozen rounds of soaking, scraping, and scrubbing later, there is still blackened blueberry cemented to the bottom of our cast iron Dutch … Continue reading How not to make a campfire Dutch oven dessert
I always get creeped out the first night of camping. After weeks of living inside walls, shielded from the outside world, and then traveling at high speed in a humming metal box to get to our campsite, I lie down in our tent after kissing the kids goodnight and smile at the shhh of wind … Continue reading The first night of camping
Having kids may have put backpacking plans on hold for the foreseeable future, but our children have not stopped us from camping. In fact, camping is one of our favorite things to do as a family. As a parent, it gets exhausting to feel like we are always disciplining, so often saying No. “No, it’s … Continue reading Here’s what’s in our camping cooler
Butterfly Mind 