has begun!

I love Memorial Day weekend. It’s our unofficial start of summer. The weather was hot and humid and sunny, the best kind for camping. We headed out Friday after school let out, we were excited and the kids were excited. Finally, we were going camping and spending time in the great outdoors.

The excitement lasted about three hours into our weekend. Our drive was two hours with a few stops. The third hour was rough. The third hour was our set up time. The third hour was during our normal dinner time. The third hour was witching hour, which then lasted a total of three hours. Each kid was running a different direction, each kid was opening up different snacks and wasting them, each kid was sampling every kind of barrel (the Hugs drinks that are in a barrel), each kid was screaming about something, each kid was fighting over a particular green chair, each kid was whining about wanting a treat, each kid was nagging about setting up their fishing poles. I had never felt so frazzled in the first hour of camping, ever.

We can typically get set up in an hour but for some reason our kids were hot messes which made us hot messes, making the process last three hours. There was no bargaining for better behavior, it was straight to threats of packing back up if the nagging, whining, fighting and loudness didn’t stop.

Somehow the night ended, the air became cooler and we all slept well.

Saturday morning hikes are the best.

Eric and I love hiking and the kids are getting better at it. All the hikes in the park were rated moderate, so we knew we could push the boys on distance. The hard part, the hikes were mostly wooded with some views of water, which isn’t that exciting for young boys. The only thing that kept them going was knowing that when we returned to camp our friends would be there.

I think one of the hardest aspects of parenting is the constant motivation that we have to give our children to do anything other than video games, watching tv or eating candy. Rhys was quite the trooper, even though his leg is completely heeled from being broke, his stamina is still broken. He kept asking for breaks by dramatically whining, “My legs are so tired. I just need to sit down.” It was hot and I knew he would be tired but I had to keep pushing him along. Sometimes, my motivational words got lost and I wanted to leave him in the woods and pick him up on our way back through.

Adventuring is hard. We have learned that we will all have moments when hard breaks us down. But then, we have moments where we see our kids shine, when they are brave, daring, and strong. We have moments where we are able to handle whatever the situation or we’re brave, daring and strong.

On this adventure we went on a hike with our friends and just a short way into the hike we had to figure out how to cross a creek or turn around. After much debating, we agreed to cross by crawling on a fallen tree. First, Eric went to see if it could be done. Then one by one we all crossed. I loved being there watching each person successfully cross and feeling that excitement as each person saw what they could do.

Seeing Rhys’ smile when he crossed that log was amazing. Cheering Emerson on to flip off the diving board made us proud. Watching Elle grow in wonder and wanting to be with the big kids was fascinating. Each camping trip, cross country road trip or walk through our town has it’s own set of challenges but it’s the moments like these that make our hearts yearn to wander.

Until our next adventure!

-Jill

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