Monday, October 20, 2008

We Survived Our First Camping Trip!

We decided it was time to take the kids on their first camping trip. Although Kevin and I had camped before, we wanted to wait until the kids were older to go camping. After acquiring all the necessary equipment, choosing the site and packing up - we headed out to take the kids tent camping!

With so many state parks in the state of Oklahoma, we finally decided to head to Arrowhead State Park on Lake Eufaula. On the first day, we set up camp, let the kids run around for a while, had dinner and then sat around the campfire and roasted marshmallows. It was a fairly typical camping experience for that first day!

The hardest part about camping was sleeping in the tent. Although it was nice during the day and in the 70s, it got down into the mid 40s the first night! We dressed the kids in layers and put them in their sleeping bags with an extra blanket. Jackson slept great - but the girls were bothered more by the cold.

On our second day camping, we drove to another state park called Robbers Cave State Park for the annual fall festival there and to climb the rocks at Robbers Cave. The kids enjoyed the carnival games and the cotton candy and snow cones at the festival.

But if you were to ask them, they would all agree that visiting Robbers Cave was the most fun. My kids love to climb rocks and go hiking on trails!

For our second night at the campsite, we had some visitors! A very determined raccoon spent the evening seeing how close he could get to our campsite. In fact, he got within a few feet of the girls sitting around the campfire! Our fierce little dog Rudy let us know the raccoon was out there and kept growling at him. The raccoon finally gave up. Later, as Kevin and I were walking over to the bathrooms we saw a skunk! We quickly turned around and decided to head towards the other bathrooms. I wasn't going to chance an encounter with a skunk!

We had a good time camping. It was a fun experience for the kids. I can see us camping again next spring and summer!

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