Camping hasn’t been one of my favorite things, I like the outdoors but camping meant too much work and too much outdoors. But do you remember in January when we visited our friend Jason with his tent-trailer that fascinated us and we set a goal to go camping in the summer? Everything changes when you have kids and want to see them enjoy it all.

So we finally went as I told you in this post and it was an amazing experience. I know, I might tell this story as if it were something out of this world, but for us that have never gone camping as a family, it was! We invited other families to come along. Our friend Jason lent us his tent-trailer in which we slept and he used his tent, he set it all up for us and everything!

The campgrounds here can be called Glamping because the truth is they are super comfortable, it’s not a hotel of course, but there are bathrooms with showers and hot water, what else can we ask for?! 😉

The place we went is about an hour away and it’s called Lake Morena, which due to the drought here in California no one is allowed to swim in the lake, it’s amazing to see the marks where the water was before. But we still enjoyed!

Five minutes after arriving Maya was already covered in dirt from head to toe, even with worms in her hands and enjoying everything with her best friend. One day I bathed them both before going to bed and told them that if they would get dirty again I would be very very upset, haha as if that were to stop the mess. The thing is that even though it’s cool that they are enjoying nature, playing and getting dirty, I still cringe a little seeing them like that, coming in and out of the tents with those feet!, but hey, it’s part of camping right? Embracing nature!

 

Camping is so nice, it’s like resting and relaxing all day and night (see, not much work!!). Even though it’s hard for me to be relaxed cause I like doing things, keeping busy busy so I did feel that I missed things that I wanted to do. It was pretty hot and we couldn’t go hiking during the day, the sun was very strong. So in the afternoon when the sun was less strong it was time to make dinner and then start the fire and after one thing and the other it was already night time. I wanted to go and take pictures of nature and the sunset but between food, bathing children, sitting, relaxing and chatting with friends time went away.

It doesn’t matter because we will be back soon for more camping and this time we are getting our own tent. The basics thing you need to go camping in a campground like this is a tent, air mattresses, and a portable gas kitchen. Done! The rest are simple accessories from every day life and little by little you can add more if you want. It’s such a great alternative for a weekend trip, not so far away and full of adventure.

The kiddos are at the perfect age in which these experiences will be a big part of their life and personality, I enjoy seeing them enjoy all this so much! Since we went during the 4th of July weekend the parks staff hosted games and crafts for the kids, they enjoyed all of it! And for me, it’s like a full weekend for a photoshoot, LOL!

One last thing I wanted to mention is that we had brought one tablet with 2 movies for the children to watch at night but after watching movies my video games fanatic Adrian began to play with it and when it was time to stop there were tantrums and it was not good. So to avoid this, next time we won’t be even taking movies. It may be extreme but we’ll see if it works better, that way there is no temptation. Until he can manage his video game time better, I think it is a good idea that children do not take any devices to camping.