OT: Camping

Misty, I am so excited for you! You will have a great time.

Are you planning on doing a campfire one night? Maybe the night your husband comes for dinner, you could roast hotdogs over the fire, and do s’mores, with fruit like grapes ( prewashed in a Rubbermaid) to balance it out. Can you borrow a camping stove? It is nice to have for heating water for dishes, heating stuff up. You could premake a big batch of spaghetti and sauce, and reheat it out there. Snacks to consider: trail mix that the kids can mix and make ahead of time, grapes, apples and oranges can hold up well, popcorn. Breakfast burritos are a great make ahead option, with eggs, potatoes, cheese, and possibly meat wrapped in a tortilla. Otherwise, we do instant oatmeal and Poptarts (I know, breakfast of champions there.). Carrots, ants on a log are yummy, too.

Some things to bring, in no particular order. Extra socks….at least 2 pair more than you think, for everyone. Lantern. Flashlights and or headlamps are great for many purposes. Toilet paper just in case the bathrooms run out. Paper towels. Bug repellant. A great read aloud for bedtime. A game or two in case of rain. Buckets, shovels, trucks for dirt or gravel play. The bikes will be great! Containers for ” treasures” that get discovered. We’ve found a bluebird egg, owl feather, and muskrat skull on a trip….the egg didn’t survive the Baggie it was in. Charge you camera battery!

Have a fantastic time. I am sure others will have input as well.

Katrina

Before I hit you with a long list, will you be cooking by fire or have a cook stove of any kind?  Cooler?  Or will hubby be bringing fresh food up every night?

Here are a couple websites I look to before we go camping:

http://www.scoutorama.com/recipe/

http://camping.about.com/od/campinggearchecklists/l/blchklist.htm

http://maddogmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Down-and-Dirty-Guide-for-Website.pdf

http://www.scoutlists.com/

HTH, Charlene

Food –

frozen yogurt tubes (doubles as “ice” until it melts)

fruits and veggies already washed and cut (some need refrigeration and some don’t) – grapes are great, apples (uncut), baby carrots, bananas, sugar snap peas, peaches, nectarines, melons, lettuce (washed and ready for salads) – bring a cutting board and a knife

instant oatmeal for breakfast – we make our own mixes

dried nuts and fruits for snacks (I dry as much of my own fruit as I can)

I also cook up lots of energy bars, granola bars, breakfast cookies, stuff like that and package them in meal-size baggies or containers.  Most don’t need to be refrigerated.  We’ll eat them for breakfast with fruit or as snacks.

Ye olde traditional hot dogs, sausages, hamburgers, etc.

Tinfoil dinners.  So many variations.  Recently I found something that works SO much better.  I pre-cook the potatoes, carrots, onions, etc all separately.  Cook up various meats separatly as well.  I put them all in separate baggies.  When we want to cook the meal I give each person a large sheet of heavy duty tin foil and they add what they want in it.  Wrap and throw in the coals.  It was warmed through in less than 5 minutes.  You can do so many variations – tator tots, fries, diced potatoes, hashbrowns.  Cooked rice or other grain.  Chicken, beef, sausage (Italian or breakfast), bacon.  Cheese, raw egg, veggies, etc.

Any chili, soup or stew can be cooked on the stove.  You can also heat sauces (think spaghetti) and cook noodles or rice.  

You can do Thermos cooking.  I don’t have recipes for this yet but the concept is that you take some oats or rice and seasoning/sugar/meats or veggies and put it in a thermos, add boiling water and cap.  Let sit overnight and you have a hot meal in the morning.  Or do it in the morning for dinner.  Rice pudding, tuna casserole, brown sugar oatmeal, soup, etc.

We like headlamps for kids.  They put flashlights down and lose them or drop them in yucky places.  Be prepared for dirty and stinky – it’s a part of camp and it makes it more fun!  Paper towels.  Baby wipes or wet wipes for washing hands (they are good for scrubbing dirt off too).  You can even use them for impromptu baths.  Some sort of antibacterial/disinfectant soap because most bathrooms won’t have soap!  First aid kit including Benadryl or something for bug bites (and bug spray to keep them away in the first place).  Water bottles for everyone.  Otherwise you go through a bazillion cups and they all blow away.

Oh, I did think of a few tips.

If you are camping in a tent, try to take a large box lid or two (like something you would get from those grocery stores that display canned goods by the case–Aldi’s–bring home the shallow cardboard the case of canned goods came in) and use it to put shoes in when you take them off to go into the tent. Just make sure to bring the box of shoes inside the tent at night or they will all be very wet with dew.

Strictly enforce the rule about not wearing shoes inside the tent. This will cut down on the amount of dirt tracked in.

Despite your best efforts at the aforementioned rule, dirt will get inside the tent….especially if you encounter a rainy day. Don’t sweat it….just bring along a small broom or a whisk broom and dustpan, and making a morning and evening sweepout of the tent someone’s daily chore.

Speaking of chores, think of the many tasks you need to take care of to preserve the fun of the trip and assign them to each child ahead of time. Things like washing, drying, and putting away cooking & eating utensils, tying up the garbage (if you can’t take it to the camp dumpster before bed, tie the closed bag as high up on a tree as possible, as far away from your tent as you can….better still, double-bag it and put it in your car trunk overnight if you can), dressing/washing/toothbrushing the littles ones, meal prep, etc. all can be assigned as “your camp job” before you get there.

Oh, and in case it does rain and you need to be in the tent for awhile, pack a travel-sized game, a couple of books, a deck of cards, and plan to have a game afternoon. Or, see if there is something inexpensive to do nearby that is indoors. Or, just go for a drive for a little while….well, maybe not with today’s gas prices! If it rains, you can always just go for a hike in the rain (if it’s pretty warm) and enjoy the fun of purposely getting soaked to the skin, then everyone enjoys a quick warm shower (assuming your campground has a shower house and not just toilets) before changing into dry clothes. Leave the wet muddy clothes on the clothesline you’ve hung between two trees at your campsite….it’s not going to hurt the clothes to be left out in the rain, right? You can rescue them the next day.

If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.

Well, after you freeze those gallon jugs of ice water you can use the jug as a hand washer.  I am sure the kids will get dirty. What we did is hang a gallon jug of water, in a tree, with a rope.  We put a hole in the side near the bottom with a golf tee. and we wrapped a bar of soap in a nylon around the handle of the jug. (to keep it from falling off into the dirt.) You could put paper towels on the rope before you hang the jug on the rope if you want to use paper towels. You could use a towel that hangs on the fridge to wrap around the rope also. This way the kids don’t have to run to the lake or bathrooms everytime they get their hands dirty. You will also know if everyone washed their hands. 🙂  

   I am not sure if you use bowls from home or not or what kind of cereal ect…. But, one time we forgot the bowls to eat breakfast out of. We use big red cups. It was so much easier and I am glad we had them because they were more handy then bowls (and cheaper). If you make oatmeal in a pot you could just scoop it into their bowls. Bring a couple of extra totes. So you can have extra water on hand for those dishes. 

    I always have a few extra tarps around. One for under the tents. This keeps rocks, ect. from ruining the tent. It also helps keep moisture out.  Another one for outside the tent to keep grass/dirt from coming in. You can also cover the shoes up with one side of the tarp at night to keep the dew off. If it rains you can lift the tarp up and away from the tent and their won’t be any mud in the tent area.  Plus you don’t have to bring 9 pairs of dirty shoes in the tent.  Another tarp for over the tent just in case their might be a leak in the tent. They work wonderful for picnic tables also. you can use the bungies and put them threw the holes and get them tighter without the table cloth blowing off the table. (unlesss you already bought those cute little table cloth hangers.)  I usually get the 8×10 tarps at Menards. They only cost about 3 or 4 dollars each. When they are on sale you can get them for  1.99.

    To start a fire that will burn really hot and quick use birch bark. This is better then tons of lighter fluid. Plus it stays lit.

    If you are going by a lake make sure to pack fishing line, hooks and maybe some small bobbers.  This way the kids can take a tree branch and try fishing with their own rods. They may catch some small bluegills this time of year. This will keep them busy and tell them they are trying to catch some dinner. 🙂  Have a scavanger list made up so they can look for things in the area.  Maple leaf, acorn, catapillar, cacoon, spider eggs sac, web, four-leaf clovers. 🙂   You get the idea….  I recently started reading to them while they were swimming. They liked it and I felt like we were accomplishing something in the process. 🙂  I got to relax and read my books and theirs. I would take breaks from reading to them to read my book to myself. It was wonderful. They often asked for me to read somemore…. 🙂 One day I forgot the book and they were disappointed. I must admit so was I.

   Which reminds me to tell you not to forget the comfortable chairs and some sit-a-pons.  (Sit-a-pon)-  A peice of plastic made sometimes out of old plastic table cloths. The center has newspapers or foam as a cushion. Put together by yarn which has been put through holes punched into the table cloth and the yarn weaved around the square to keep the newspaper sandwiched between  the plastic cloth. This keeps their butts clean and dry. Also can easily be taken to the beach, docks, around the campfire and to sit on hard picnic benches, ect…  These are great because they can be set on wet grass and you just wipe them off. 

   Which reminds me don’t forget the extra diaper wipes. These are great for a quick clean ups. Less wear and tear on the dish cloth that seems to become guncked up with tons of dirt.  Rope and clothes pins for those wet clothes and swim suit/towels too. Make sure you have at least two trees where you are camping. 🙂

    Oh I almost forgot. Don’t forget the black marker. This I use to write on cups. This way everyone knows their cup and don’t keep using all of them up or each others.  You will also know who left their cup on the ground ect…Slip the marker into the cups before you leave. This way you will be ready as soon as you give them their first drink. 

               Hope you have an enjoyable camping experiance and remember what Dobson says. The best and rememberable experiances will be when there is a tragedy. So, if something goes wrong everyone will remember it and that is what they will remember for the rest of thier lives.  So, if you have something bad happens don’t fret. It is a memory for the  future.

                                             Blessings!