Family camping

It just hit me that we are going camping in three days and I am very much unprepared. My focus as of late has been to get my kids finished with school and figure out how to survive summer break with my two spawn. Well, perhaps survive is the wrong word. I know I'll survive, I'm just trying to find a way to make our time together enjoyable and not boring. After Sonny Boy started asking to go back to school on the first day of spring break I started feeling a little queasy every time I thought of summer break. I thought he might actually die of boredom. I guess I'm just not that fun.  At least not by seven-year-old boy standards. And neither is his sister, which is unfortunate because Princess Blondie thinks that he is the coolest thing since sliced bread. 

Fortunately, I think now that we will have plenty to do this summer and Sonny Boy will survive and not, in fact, die of boredom. First off, Sonny Boy started baseball this year and that is keeping us plenty busy. Two games and one practice a week should keep us all hopping. Then there is Scout camp sometime in June. Plus there are the visits from grandparents.

And finally there is the camping. For which I am unprepared. And if I may admit, slightly unenthusiastic. There are a few reasons I am skeptical of camping being fun. First, it sort of seems like playing house on a smaller, dirtier scale. At least there is a smaller space to clean than my house. Not that I clean my house, just ask my husband. I'm a terrible housekeeper. For instance, instead of cleaning I am blogging. Anyhow, second, I'm afraid my kids will be bored to tears. Third, I'm afraid I will be bored to tears. Fourth, I'm afraid of wild life here. Bears especially. They just completely freak me out. If it were just me and my DH it wouldn't worry me so much but I've found I'm sort of paranoid about some things now that I have kids. Bears being one of them.

I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised and really enjoy our camping trip. I think that I will. For starters, we have a fifth wheel now instead of tent. I have decided that I loathe tent camping. Especially in NC when it is unbearably hot. It's just not fun. At all. We didn't really plan to buy a fifth wheel already, but we sort of needed one to live in when we first moved up here. We stayed in my sister's yard until we finally closed on a house. We figured if we didn't like it we could sell it. We decided that we liked it. And now we are on to our first summer of camping, because my sister's backyard does not count. 

My survival tactic for the weekend is to bring books. For the kids but mostly for me. And we will bring games and stuff for the kids. And our bikes, I think. I would love to sit around all weekend and do nothing but read but I think that I should probably interact with and cook for my family. They would probably appreciate that. And since we will be in Denali we will obviously check out the park. Please don't think that I really will go camping and just sit in my camper reading all weekend. I'm not that lame. 

So off we go. Well, not quite yet, but soon. Let me know if you've got any camping survival/fun tips. I may need them.