Summer Bucket List 2018 | Camping in Utah

Our family enjoys being outdoors. We like to go hiking and take walks at the park. Jason and the kids like going on bike rides and as you know, I’m a runner. However, we just recently started going camping as a family. I guess you can say we are officially “outdoorsy” now 😉 To check out my 5 tips for camping with kids, go HERE!

Anyhow, we’d been camping twice and both times to the same place, Navajo Lake in Utah, so for this year’s camping trip we decided we’d try someplace new. We made reservations to a campsite in Central Utah called Kents Lake. We went with 3 other families, all of which had also been with us on our last camping trip. We arrived on a Thursday afternoon and spent 2 nights sleeping in tents and enjoying the fresh air. The weather was a bit warmer than our last trips, but we appreciated it at night. We had one afternoon of showers and hail, which put a slight damper on our lunch and made Elysse freak out, but it cleared up pretty quickly and all was well again!

The main highlight for our family was Diego catching his first fish on the lake! It was so special to see his face light up! Huge thanks to the family fishing next to them for sharing their secret weapon with us and helping him figure out what to do once he’d caught it.

The camp site was fine, but I wouldn’t recommend it as it didn’t have flushing toilets. Now, I understand we’re camping and all, but flushing toilets are a basic necessity for me. They had vault toilets, which is really just an outhouse. Also, compared to Navajo Lake, there wasn’t too much to do around the campsite or on the lake. Of course, when you’re camping with 13 other people and you are all good friends, you don’t need much more than that! We still had a really good time with lots of laughs and new memories were made. We can’t wait to go camping again together, just not at Kent’s Lake this time. We’re thinking of changing it up and doing some beach camping in Southern California next summer. What’s your favorite camping spot? Have you been camping at the beach? Let me know in the comments below.

Summer Bucket List 2017: In Review

Summer has come and gone and we’re finally out of the triple digit temperatures here in Las Vegas! Kids have been in school for a month and our days are packed and busy again. Anyone else out there ready for a break already?!?

I thought I’d go back and relive a little bit of our summer fun! As you all know, we’ve been putting together a summer bucket list for years now, but I think this year’s was a little too ambitious and it’s no surprise we didn’t get to do everything on the list. Some things we didn’t do together as a family, such as the grandparents taking the kiddos to Dave & Buster’s while we were away in Napa and Jason taking the kiddos to the drive in movies while I had book club. Diego got to go to Wet N Wild water park with some friends and I took Elysse to Gravady Trampoline Park last weekend with her friend. Sure we didn’t get a chance to try rolled ice cream, but we did enjoy plenty of ice cream this summer, including the famous Salt n Straw in Portland! YUMmmm! Although we didn’t get to visit Zion National Park, we did visit Sand Hollow Sate Park in Utah.

We’ll have to try to get to doing some ice skating this winter, try to get a camping trip in this spring, even if it’s close to home in Mount Charleston, and Spring Mountain Ranch Super Summer Theater will be back on the list for summer 2018!

Hope your summer was fun and that you got to spend time together as a family and make some messy memories together!! XO

Summer Family Vacation Part II: Portland, Oregon

Here’s Part II of our Pacific Northwest family summer vacation. We left Seattle in the early afternoon and headed to Portland. As soon as we were out of the city, the weather started to clear up and we were happy to see blue skies and sunshine!

We arrived at our rented apartment from AirBnB, unloaded our suitcases from the car and freshened up for dinner. Our AirBnB was in a great location close to so many of the best food spots in town! We met up for dinner at the Country Cat with some good friends who’d moved to Portland a couple of years ago from Las Vegas. The restaurant was small and cozy and we had a great table right up against the window and not in the middle of the restaurant. That was great for us with the kiddos! Afterwards we made our way to Salt & Straw on SE Division St. for ice cream. The ice cream shop had a long line and we probably waited a good 30 minutes before we had our ice cream, but it was worth it! Plus, time went by fast since we were chatting and catching up! Thank goodness our apartment was just around the corner, because we were stuffed and ready for bed.

Before heading out to explore on Monday, we grabbed breakfast at one of the awesome food truck pods that are all over the city. We chose Fried Egg I’m in Love because they had great reviews on Yelp and with breakfast sandwich names like Smells Like Protein Spirit and Free-Range Against the Machine, we knew they’d be good! They did not disappoint. Bellies full we took off on our day trip to the Colombia River Gorge area and got to see the famous Multmonah Falls and drive along the river and visit the countryside. We were a little early in the season for berry or cherry picking but we got to feed and pet some alpacas so that totally made up for it! Plus, the craft beers and gourmet food truck at the Gorge White House really hit the spot after our long day. Once we were back in Portland we picked up some groceries at New Seasons Market. It’s a local(ish)grocery store chain in Portland/Vancouver areas that is similar to Whole Foods. We were beat after our long day but so happy we got to spend some time in nature and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

We planned to stay in Portland on Tuesday. We started our day with a cool make-your-own-pancakes place called Slappy Cakes. The food was ok and the pancakes weren’t amazing, but the kids really enjoyed making their pancakes into different shapes! It’s a nice place for kids, but don’t expect an amazing meal. We did lots of walking and sightseeing in Portland and visiting a lot of the major attractions, such as the Japanese Garden, the International Rose Testing Garden, Voodoo Donuts, Powell’s Bookstore, and eating from yet more food trucks. We met up for dinner with our friends again at Deschutes Brewery and Public House, which was another not-so-great place. The wait was long, the food was mediocre, and the service was poor. We were disappointed, especially since there are so many other good places to to eat at in Portland. I don’t recommend it.

We took another road trip on our 3rd day to visit the Oregon Coast. Seriously would love to spend a full weekend out there! The coast is so beautiful and we really enjoyed Cannon Beach and Astoria! We got back to Portland just in time for dinner and we chose to visit another food cart pod, this one was on SE 28th Pl and Division. We were totally diggin’ the vibe there and we all ended up picking up our meals from different carts! Diego had pizza, they actually had a brick oven! Elysse chose mini corn dogs (not so adventurous this day) Jason had sushi, and I chose Indian. We were pretty tired from our trip, so rather than eat it there, we took it with us and enjoyed a nice quite evening at the apartment. I also took advantage of the washer and dryer and ran a load of laundry. Not exactly what you want to be doing on vacation, but it was just 1 load and it made packing easier. Plus, it was one less thing to do when I got back home!

Our last day started off with a quick breakfast in the apartment while we, and by we, I mean mostly I, packed everything up to check out. We then met up with our friends for lunch at Lardo. Do yourself a favor and go there for lunch next time you’re in Portland. I crave their Korean Pork Shoulder sandwich and the Pork Meatball Banh Mi! So so good!! The rest of our day was spent at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry! I didn’t think we would spend the entire day there, but there was so much to see and do that it really did fill up our whole day. Then it was off to PDX to head back home to Las Vegas! One worse thing about the flights back home to Vegas is that they’re usually filled with folks ready to party, while we’re always tired and grumpy our vacation is ending and theirs is just starting! LOL

Seriously though, it’s hard when vacations end but I’m always so grateful we got to go! We visited some amazing places, enjoyed cool weather, ate some delicious food, and made lifelong memories together. What more could we ask for?!? What are some fun places you’ve visited this summer? I’d love to hear some of your favorite vacation spots ever too!

Summer Family Vacation Part I: Seattle, WA

As I mentioned in my last post, I got to run the Rock N Roll Seattle Half Marathon last month. And, having never been to the Pacific Northwest, we decided to make it a family vacation, adding Portland and the Oregon coast to our trip. Today, I’ll be sharing all about our weekend in Seattle first and Part II will go into our 4 days Oregon.

Since our trip ended in Portland, that’s where we flew into. Whenever we have trips where we are visiting a few cities or doing a road trip once we land, I prefer to fly into the city we’ll be visiting last. The main reasons I prefer to do this are 1: Renting a car one-way is a lot more expensive than returning it at the same airport. 2: It’s less stressful to be near your airport at departure than having to calculate for a few hours drive. I’d hate to miss our flight due to unforeseen traffic or getting lost.

The drive to Seattle from Portland took longer than anticipated due to traffic, but we had plenty of time to pick up my race packet at the expo and then make our way to Pioneer Square for our walking tour by Beneath the Streets. We’d heard about these tours from some friends and when I saw they were giving 1 complimentary tour to Rock N Roll runners, I figured we’d give it a try. We don’t normally do group tours on vacation because I prefer a more authentic vibe, plus with little ones, you just never know if they’ll find them interesting. Well, to my surprise the kids, who aren’t so little anymore, did enjoy the tour. They found it interesting and even asked some really good questions to our tour guide. Afterwards, we stayed in the area and enjoyed some of the fun games they had in the square.

Our next stop was Pike Place Market. The market was closing when we arrived but it was still super crowded. I know this is an icon Seattle tourist spot, but I wasn’t really impressed. I think there were just way too many people walking around aimlessly and being, well, tourists. We originally planned to walk around the market, watch the famous fish throwing, and eat from a few of the popular food places. With the market closing, we didn’t get to see much and we only made it to one place Beecher’s Handmade Cheese for some mac n cheese. It was cool to see the cheese making process through the window, but it wasn’t really amazing mac n cheese. The best part was seeing all the beautiful flower stands.

Afterwards, we checked into our hotel room for the night and we were all so tired & a bit cranky from waking up early for our flight and walking around all day, that we just ordered a pizza and salad and had it in our room.

It was another early morning for me on Sunday to get up and run the half marathon. It was a great course and I really enjoyed it and the VIP lounge area. You can read the race recap on my previous post HERE. After the race, we made our way to Seattle Center for a closer look at the Space Needle and to grab some lunch before making our way to Portland! I wish we would/could have spent more time in this area. I would like to go back and check out some of the museums, but we still enjoyed our time walking around the pretty gardens and the kids had a blast at the playground there. Our last stop was to go see the Fremont Troll under the Aurora Bridge. Such a quirky spot and I’m so glad we got to see it!

Although it was a bit of a whirlwind, our weekend in Seattle was a ton of fun. Coming from Vegas, we welcomed the gloomy and rainy weather. It never really rained but we did have a few drizzles. Ideally, I think 3 days in Seattle would have been perfect and would have allowed us to visit a museum or two and not crammed so much into 2 days.

Have you been to Seattle? Besides the museums, what else would you recommend we do or see on our next trip to Seattle? What side trips would be worth a visit from Seattle? Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back for the rest of our PNW trip!

Fun with Kids in Los Angeles, CA

Whenever I register for a race that’s away from home, I always debate if we should bring the kids or not. Most times, it just comes down to if there’s anything fun for them to do there or not. With the L.A. Marathon being in Los Angeles and it also being my first full marathon, I thought it’d be great to bring the kids and make a trip out of it, a little race-cation 😉

WIth a little planning, it is totally feasible to run a great race and have a fun time as a family together. I think it’s important for the kids to see all your hard work pay off in the end. My kiddos are there when I get home from an early morning run, they see me hobble up the stairs if I’m sore from a long run, they know all about epsom salt baths and icy hot, so why not have them their for the reward after too! They are my biggest supporters and rather than leave them behind, I try to take them along for most races for all the race day fun and more!

After packet pickup on Saturday, we were all super excited to go eat at Seoul Sausage, since they were previous winners of The Great Food Truck Race on The Food Network. It originally aired a few years ago, but we just recently saw it on Netflix as a family. I knew they were from L.A., so I looked them up and saw they had 2 actual restaurants, plus the food truck. Turns out, their newest location in Little Tokyo was about 2 miles from the convention center where we’d be for packet pickup. I wanted it to be a surprise, but I blurted something out to Jason while driving one day and they caught on quickly! So much for the surprise!

Before we left Vegas, I jokingly asked the kids if they thought we’d see the guys from the show and of course, they both said we wouldn’t see them. Well, to their surprise (and mine) 2 of the 3 owners showed up right as we finished our late lunch. They were super nice guys and took a picture with the kids. This really made their day.

After lunch, we went to check into our AirBnB condo and relax a bit. My nephew really wanted to go check out the Urban Lights exhibit at LACMA once it got dark soo, before grabbing some dinner, we went to check it out. It was packed, but the kids had fun walking through and playing among all the light posts!

After the marathon, we walked to the Santa Monica Pier and grabbed some food at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Although the food isn’t anything to brag about, it’s a fun atmosphere and super kid friendly. After lunch we walked down the pier so the kids could ride the roller coaster before heading back to our condo to crash for the day! We could easily have spent hours at the pier riding rides and playing games, but I was just too exhausted for that this time. The Santa Monica Pier is a great place to go and spend a few hours enjoying the sights and attractions, plus have fun on the beach! It’s definitely a must-visit for any Los Angeles trip, with our without kids.

The next day started out a little rocky with cranky kiddos, but thankfully we were able to turn it around and enjoy our morning walking around the grounds of the La Brea Tar Pits and L.A. County Museum of Art. The weather was perfect for being outdoors and it was exactly what we needed to unwind and relax a bit before driving back home. The grounds are free to walk around and explore. We spent about an hour and a half there and could have easily spent another hour there. Next time we go, we’ll actually go inside the museum and check out those exhibits and IMAX movies. But this time around, the outdoor exhibits and sculptures were just enough to keep them interested in the art and science without getting bored. Plus, there is plenty of room to run and be kids! I highly recommend going!

It was a jam-packed 3 day trip full of fun memories for sure! Getting away to sunny California, running a marathon, and spending quality time with the family is always the best!

So, I’d love to know, do you take your kiddos or family when you travel for a race?

2015 A Year in Review: Travels, Races, and Family Fun

With just a couple of days left in the year, I thought it would be fun to revisit 2015 today. The year started off rough and we had lots to deal with as it went on with Jason’s injury and following surgeries. There were days that we just could not see the light. But, we aren’t the type to let our lives be dictated by our circumstance. Sure, things were not ideal, but we knew they could be much worse. So, we made the best with what we had. We kept positive and moving forward with our lives.

Even with the ups and downs, we had such a full year. We got to travel to some fun places with our family and Jason and I even got away without the kiddos to San Francisco+Sonoma County. We took the kids camping in Utah for the first time. We spent a super fun weekend with our family in Huntington Beach, CA! The kids and I hiked to the Colorado River. We got to go boating in Lake Mead. I ran my first trail half marathon in Red Rock Canyon and my 3rd Tough Mudder. I won a free registration from Pace Per Mile to Walt Disney World’s Wine & Dine Half Marathon, so we all went to Florida for 8 days! The kiddos ran the Disney Kid 1 mile race. We visited all 4 Disney parks and visited with friends that are like family. I also ran the Disneyland Half Marathon to complete the Coast to Coast Challenge. I ran 3 Spartan races (2 with the hubs) and got my 2nd Trifecta. The kids ran the Spartan Kid race too. Lastly, I won another free registration to the Run Laughlin Half Marathon in December, which turned out to be a great race.

I’m looking forward to starting 2016 with new goals and plans. I’m looking forward to fun adventures with my family and taking on new challenges. But, for now, I’m happy to look back and reflect on all the good things that have taken place and not to dwell on what could have been or feel bad for the huge curve ball life threw our way. Today I choose to be grateful for all the wonderful things and places I’ve been. I’m grateful for my family’s constant support. I’m happy to be where I am in life. It may not be exactly where I want to be, but it is a lot closer than I was before. And for that, I am grateful.

What’s your favorite memory of 2015? Are you looking forward to 2016? What goals do you have for the new year?

Disney World 2015 | Epcot

Our last day at Disney World was at my favorite park, Epcot! The World Showcase is really my favorite because I love to travel and I remember being 10 years old on our first visit to Epcot and imagining I was really traveling to those countries. Heck, I still like to pretend we’re in the real countries 😉

We arrived at 9am to Epcot and the kids were anxious to get on a ride. I tried explaining that Epcot didn’t have the kind of rides found at Magic Kingdom so they wouldn’t be disappointed. However, they were just as excited to ride Spaceship Earth as they were to ride Space Mountain! After Spaceship Earth we let the kids play around with some of the hands-on exhibits before heading to the Mission Space ride where afterwards the kids also enjoyed the hands-on exhibits and games as we exited the ride.

We purchased the kids each a kit (map & stickers) for a new game that was debuting for the Food and Wine festival called, Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak. It was basically a scavenger hunt to find a Remy statue at each country then placing the corresponding sticker on the map to represent that location. At the end, you redeem your map for your choice of Remy pin. They were excited to get started and we were excited to get started at the Food & Wine Festival! The plan was to do the 1st half of the World Showcase countries and visit the Food & Wine Festival kiosks as we went, then ride the ferry from Germany back to Future World to use our fast passes for Soaring and Turtle Talk with Crush, and FastTrack. Afterwards, we’d go back and work our way around the other half of the countries, have dinner at Chefs De France, and finish the night watching Illuminations.

Although, technically, we did stick to that plan we had a major scare when visiting our first kiosk of the Food & Wine Festival. I was excited to visit the champagne kiosk and was ready to enjoy a glass of fancy bubbly. We ordered Diego a yummy chocolate dessert and Elysse some chocolate truffles. I asked if they had nuts, since she is allergic to all tree nuts and peanuts and was told by the Disney cast member that the truffles were prepackaged and did not have nuts, although they could not account for cross-contamination in the factory. Now, here’s where the problem began. I should have checked the packaging before giving her the chocolates. I feel terrible for trusting the young cast member. Regardless of how sure she sounded, it was my responsibility as her parent to ensure there were no nuts before handing it to her. The instant she took a bite, she said she was full, mind you, she is never full where there is chocolate involved! She never said how it made her feel and we assumed she was just being fussy. With the heat and humidity, we knew the chocolate would melt immediately and Jason just told her to eat the chocolate, it was small, and we’d save the other half. I noticed she was not acting right and finally it started to dawn on me that there may have been nuts in the chocolate. Sure enough, the second ingredient were hazelnuts. We were right next to a store and I ran in asking if they had benadryl, which they did not but I was told to go to First Aid. By this point, she threw it all up and was complaining her throat was hurting. We ran to First Aid, which was not far from where we were. They gave her the benadryl and at that point, I knew she’d be ok. I asked if she wanted to go back to the hotel, but she didn’t want to leave, so we waited it out until she was finally feeling a well enough to continue our day. Of course, she refused to eat much the rest of the day and was kinda blah. We tried to make the best of it and she was such a trooper!

We really did learn our lesson and will definitely be more prepared next time. We’d never had any issues while traveling before and she hadn’t had an allergic reaction for years, so we we’ve been pretty relaxed about her allergies. But, this was definitely a wake up call for us. We already have a much better plan in place for traveling.

Although we had this very scary incident happen, we were fortunate it wasn’t any worse and she was ok. We did the best we could to enjoy the rest of our time at Epcot. We had an amazing 3 days of non-stop Disney World theme park fun. I think our kids were just the right ages (7 & 10) for enjoying everything the parks have to offer! I’m so glad we were able to go on this trip for them and experience a different kind of vacation! I’m ready for another adventure with my crazies! Where shall we go to next?

Documenting Life

As some of you may know already or if you read My Story, I’m a wedding and portrait photographer. I make my living documenting milestone events and moments in the lives of others. It is my dream job. Being able to capture these special moments for people is amazing. As a photographer, I strive to not just tell people where to stand and how to pose, but to capture how they are as a person, as a couple, as a family. I think these photos, with the real smiles, real expressions, and real moments are the ones that tell the story. These photos will tell future generations who we really were. What we were about. What and who we loved. How we lived and what mattered to us most.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because for the past few years I have gotten away from documenting my own family’s life. Business is going great. I am capturing some great moments for my clients, but when it comes to my own family, I am slacking. I realized I never take out my “fancy” camera unless it’s for work. I got lazy. That’s the bottom line. It’s just so easy to take a snap shot with my iphone, I mean, I carry it with me everywhere I go anyhow. I was also finding that with my pro camera in hand, I missed out on a lot of the fun and I worried about keeping my camera protected too, especially if we were outdoors like at the beach or something. So, a year or so ago we purchased a nice high end digital rangefinder camera that is small and convenient, so we’ve been using that for our trips and leaving our pro cameras at home. And although I love the convenience and ease of the smaller camera, I feel like something is missing. There is something about my professional DSLR camera that I can’t capture in the smaller camera.

The other problem I have with documenting life is that photos rarely live outside of a screen. With sharing on Instagram, facebook, this blog, or my photography blog, I’m not getting photos printed. I remember being a kid and getting so excited when we’d develop a roll of film and eagerly flipping through the photos, careful not to get any fingerprints on them. Or as I got older, making scrapbooks and putting the pictures in albums or small “brag books”. Remember those? I want that for my kids. I want them to be able to sit down and open a book and look through the images and remember all the fun we had on a certain vacation, hiking our favorite trails, or just on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

After giving this much thought, I’ve come up with a plan. Because, come on, you know me, there is always a plan! First of all, I’ve got to be realistic. I know that I won’t carry my pro camera everywhere. It’s just not who I am. So, there will still be lots of documenting with my iphone on instagram. However, I’m excited to check out Chat Books. They are small 6×6 60 page books where every photo you shear to Instagram creats a page in your book series. The best part is that you can easily remove photos and add captions to create perfect book each time. Because come on, I post a lot of photos of food and running that probably don’t need to be printed each time. The best part is that each book is only $6 and they also offer subscription plans. I can’t wait to try them out and let you know how they are!

My days of scrapbooking are over. Who has time for that?!? But, I do love the photo books from My Publisher. I made one for our 2013 summer vacation and the kiddos love looking through it! I know I said I had a plan, but I’m honestly not sure how I want to go about these books, yet. Ideally, I would love to make books for each season of the year or at least from each of our family vacations. Any ideas? Please share them in the comments!

Lastly, like I said, I know I won’t take my pro camera with me everywhere we go. But, I will make it a point to take it on longer vacations and periodically on hikes and stuff. I want to document, not just the special occasions, but pieces of everyday life too. Because it’s the everyday adventures and shenanigans that make up our life. It’s the forts made out of sheets in Elysee’s room, the cool kendama tricks Diego does daily, the family game nights, the bbq’s with friends. It’s these moments that make up our life. It’s these moments that are worth documenting.

Bonus: In an effort to keep up with documenting our lives, I ask that you join me too! I know I am not the only one struggling to take out the camera, be it the point and shoot, camera phone, or DSLR. I challenge you to document your life for the month of August. Let’s see how much we can photograph and document in one month. I’ll be sharing my favorite moments here on my blog and if you are also a blogger, I’d love to have you share your favorite photos on your blog. Maybe this could even become a monthly or weekly blog swap! Who’s in? We may be surprised to see that the ordinary moments are the ones that make life extraordinary.

Marking Activites Off Our Summer Bucket List 2015

We’ve officially got about one more month of summer left and so far we’ve had our fair share of, “I’m bored!” and too much TV and video games. We’ve also had our lazy days of summer where it’s just too hot to go out or days when life’s boring tasks of cleaning, running errands, and doing laundry take over. But, we’ve still managed to have some fun times. This is why it’s so important for our family to have this Summer Bucket List done early in the summer so we can not only have fun activities and events to look forward to, but to also make the time to make it happen. We don’t want to get so caught up in our daily routine and life’s demands that we forget to have fun!

Our summer has also included days at the pool at my parent’s place and our friend’s place, a fun day boating on Lake Mead, a weekend camping in Utah, jumping at SkyZone, making ice cream, evening bike rides, and watching some family movies!

We still have a few more things to mark off our Summer Bucket List but so far we’re having a great summer making memories and going on adventures! How’s your summer going?

5 Tips for a Fun & Successful Family Camping Trip

Our first camping trip as a family was a great success! Jason and I had been on few camping trips in Florida before we had the kiddos, but it’d been 12 years since then. Plus, camping with kids is way different. The kids had been asking to go camping since last summer, so we decided to make it part of our summer bucket list this year. Our trip was 2 nights and I think this was just enough for us. It was long enough to make the effort worthwhile, but not too long to get boring or overwhelming. We went out to Navajo Lake, UT, which is about a 3 hr drive from Las Vegas. This was a good distance for us. Far enough that it felt like a getaway and the scenery was completely different, but close enough that we didn’t have to drive for too long.

Of course, I don’t by any means think we’re camping experts or suggest we had a flawless trip, but I think we did pretty good and I’d love to share some of the ups and downs (but mostly the ups!) of our trip and share 5 tips that helped make our first camping trip fun!

1. Make a list! There are tons of websites you can find online or on pinterest with extensive checklists on what to pack for your camping trip. REI had a great one we used, here. These lists are pretty long and detailed, so you may or may not need all of these items for your trip, but it’s a good idea to print one out and use as a starting point. Camping requires lots of stuff. I still can’t get over the amount of things you have to take!

2. Prepare! Go on some day trips and/or family hikes if you aren’t used to the great outdoors. Our family loves to go on hikes & picnics together, so overnight camping was the natural next step for us. If you’re new to the outdoors, start off slow with a picnic at a park and walks through natural settings and work your way up to longer hikes.

3. Go with friends! Even before Jason and I had kids, we always went camping with a group of friends. The more the merrier. Going with another family was perfect for us. The kids had friends to play with, so they weren’t always looking for us to entertain them. Don’t get me wrong, we did get some, “I’m bored!” What can we do now?” but I know it would have been tons more had it just been the 4 of us.

4. Plan some activities! Yes, I’m a planner and the idea of just going on a trip without any set plans is not within my comfort zone. This trip was pretty spontaneous for us and we didn’t have huge plans for when we got there, but the few things we did have planned were just enough. It doesn’t have to be anything huge and you definitely do not need to plan every minute, but having a few activities for the kids was super helpful. Jason took some supplies for a little battery-electicity science experiment for the kids, we had them do a scavenger hunt, and the highlight of the day was going fishing! We have an awesome book titled Camp Out!: The Ultimate Kids’ Guide and it’s packed with stuff for kids to do on camping trips. (Tip: this book is also great for day trips and hikes)

5. Get the kids involved! Camping is a lot of work. There’s the setting up camp, putting up your tents, making a fire, cooking, cleaning, etc. Just unloading and loading up the cars is a lot of work. Kids love helping out and feeling useful, so get them involved in “camp life”. We gave our kids small tasks they could handle depending on their age and with some supervision and direction, they were all able to help out.

No trip with kiddos is guaranteed to be stress-free and some trips will be better than others. We had our share of issues from thunderstorms, leaking tents, and a few kid meltdowns! But, nothing we couldn’t handle with a little flexibility and a good attitude!

I’ll admit before this trip, I was pretty nervous about taking the kids camping. But, with a little preparation, I think we’ll be ready to go again soon. There’s something special about being outdoors without all the comforts of modern daily living that helps ground you. I think it’s important to let kids “rough it” for a few days, get dirty, and disconnect for a bit. I’m looking forward to our next camping trip, for sure. Any expert campers out there have any additional tips for our next trip? I’d love to hear them!