If you read this blog for the DIY content, then my apologies for all the family posts. Lately life has been a lot more experiences and a lot less projects. But if you don’t mind all the pictures of my kids, by all means continue. :)

Some things are just tough to do with infants and small toddlers: tent camping is certainly among them! Both Handsome and I grew up sleeping under the stars with our families as kids and it’s an experience we remember with fondness.

Eager to share the simple wonders of “roughing it” with Songbird and Bug when the time was right, and with the Virginia evenings finally cooling off, we packed up the crew.

No, we didn’t adopt 2 kids!  Those extras belong to our friends who joined us for our first ever family tent camping weekend recently.

In our house, these same 4 kids would be complaining of hunger, boredom, and squabbling over toys within an hour. But throw them into some dirt below big tall trees with a couple shovels and hammocks and they were happy as clams with no real complaints for 2 whole days.

One thing we did to stay busy was Geocaching. If you have kids and have never done this, go look it up NOW. Basically, it’s a worldwide treasure hunt guided by GPS. There is an app for your smartphone to both locate and navigate to the caches. They are stashed literally everywhere (maybe even in your neighborhood) and can be anything from a tin full of Pokemon cards to a paper listing the names of everyone who has found it. The only rule is that you have to bring something small to trade for the treasure you find and leave the main container in place for others to hunt later (for example we exchanged a beer bottle cap for a wooden block). It’s not really about the treasures being amazing, but rather the adventure in finding them together (some are very well hidden) and letting the kids lead the navigation.

We found 4 caches, with each child getting a chance to lead by GPS. They stayed motivated long enough to walk a total of about 3 miles, even if the littlest legs did get tired by the end. Praise God for Daddys with strong arms.

S’mores and headlamps are a must, of course. I attempted a round of Kumbaya, but was shot down mid-verse. We all sang “Let it Go” together instead (yes, even the Dads). Hehehe.

The campsite had a great boat rental dock and the bigger girls were pumped to power their own pedal boat around the river.

So much fun, that Bug didn’t even make it the 5 minute drive back from the water.

It’s a bittersweet thing when your littles grow up and out of the infant phase. On one hand, I miss the baby snuggles, all the monumental “firsts” and kids who nap on the regular. On the other hand, we are really enjoying doing new things with kids who can go all day, eat anything and don’t require any special equipment.

If Handsome and I have our way, we’ll be packing up the tent to explore new woodland adventures at least a couple times a year from here forward!