Going Camping

Sorry for no blog posts!

We've been on vacation for more than a week and arrived home just last night. We drove over to Michigan to visit Michael's mom and sister, Maureen, and her family.

We decided to save money and make an adventure while we were at it. By going camping. Seven nights in a tent. And only two nights in a hotel room (one on the way over and one more on the drive back home).

The kids loved camping, and it was fun for us parents, too.

But cold at night! After a few nights I decided to layer up the kids in two pairs of pajamas plus their zip-up hooded sweatshirt. On some nights they had a regular shirt on under that. Their feet were covered by socks and their footie PJs. Some nights it got down to the high 40s!

Most days were beautiful. Not too hot or humid, so Shreve loved it, too. Some nights he didn't even want to come inside the tent. It did rain for about a day and a half. But we'd covered out tent with a gigantic tarp and didn't have any problems with moisture. Our spread looked as if some sort of UFO had landed.

We camped four nights at a state park in Michigan and three nights at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, just outside of Chesterton, the latter of which was much superior. With real woods. And nicer shower and bathroom facilities! That's a feature.

Besides cooking over a fire, Anna and Alexander got to do all the typical kid camping stuff — digging in the dirt and poking holes through leaves with tent stakes and catching caterpillars, climbing trees, and playing softball, golf and soccer and tennis with a badminton racquet and golf balls.

Here are a few pics around the camps. Many more to come!