May Camping: Brunswick Family Campground

We hit the tents a little earlier this year during the first weekend of May. We went to the Brunswick Family Campground in Maryland, just shy of Harpers Ferry, WV. My goal for this outdoor adventure was to be able to camp right next to the water (which is surprisingly difficult to find around here!). You may be able to camp kind of near it , but never where you can touch it from your campsite. There is always Assateague and some other beach campgrounds, but its a little different when you are trying to set up in sand (and the sun becomes a bit of an issue as well). Thats why I think river or lake camping rocks!

It was hard to tell what the campground was really like from their website, but when we arrived, we had an entire section to ourselves all the way at the end. Normally it consists of 2 or 3 campsites but considering the time of year we had quite the space to spread out; just in our campsite alone we had 3 picnic tables and two fire pits. And there was a trail right down to the river, so in just a couple steps we could touch the Potomac! We were elevated a bit, which was probably good to keep the kids away from the water and the scary river creatures away from us.

We went with Tiffany and Ryan again, which is not only great because our offspring LOVE them, but we enjoy their witty banter, bug repellant devices, cool glowing stuff that they always have, ability to sense animals that may be nearby, and of course their barcar. However one of the highlights of our cohabiting in the trees, is our woodsy gourmet concoctions. Unlike last fall, we had all the parts for our propane camping stove this time so it made a few things a little easier, such as making eggs and boiling water for coffee. On the dinner menus were chicken tinga with chipotle veggies and espresso-rubbed pork with delunctious brownies encapsulated in oranges. For breakfast we did smoky cauliflower frittata and chicken sausage hash with eggs on top. Oh and of course we had the french press this time. Now I realize that camping is supposed to bring you closer to nature, and back to a simpler time without smoked paprika, fresh margaritas, and french roast coffee... but, who are we kidding? We don't go camping to eat hot dogs, marshmallows, and tang! And we appreciate that there is a bathhouse nearby (but in this case, was actually not that close, so when nature called, nature received- about 60% of the time we were there).

We do enjoy being in nature, being out of our element, but we still like certain comforts; I prefer to blame having kids on the need to have certain necessities around. Would if they have a major accident and they need a shower pronto? Would if it rains and we can't buy wood from the camp host to keep them warm? Would if we run out of ice for our cocktails?? (camping with kids? Margaritas help!).

We weren't able to actually go out on the river (too early) but we hiked around and had a picnic during our full day on Sunday. The girls enjoyed finding dandelions and were very intrigued by all the bugs we found.

When we left on Monday we went to drive through Harpers Ferry just to see what it looked like, it was a really neat small, historic city- we'll have to try and make it back!

Fall Camping!

We finally made it camping this year! It took us till the fall, but at least we made it! We went to Elk Neck State Park which is about an hour northeast of Baltimore. Dave and I went here for our first camping trip in Maryland 4 or so years ago and haven't been back since. This time we had a little larger crew with our newly married friends Tiffany and Ryan along with all of our children (Lucy, Stella, and of course Penny).

We weren't exactly roughin' it considering our tent has two rooms and a porch and the indoor bathroom was right across the way from us. Furthermore our cuisine was definitely camp gourmet. We made sausage, tomato, and spinach over pasta with homemade bread the first night, had breakfast burritos in the morning; Tiff and Ry made turkey sloppy joes the next and had sweet potato hash with apple chicken sausage the following morning. We were missing a part on our propane stove but we were able to do all of the above with heavy duty foil and our fire! We did get to experience some classic camping with the unusual number of daddy-long-legs that we saw however!

It was perfect fall weather (a little chilly the last night) and the girls had a blast exploring & romping around the woods. There was a playground near our loop which was convenient as well.

I got a little break when Ryan, Tiff, and I got to take a hike to the Turkey Point Lighthouse (Dave was nice enough to chill at the campsite while the girls were napping) and we had lunch on the rocks. That area is surrounded by water with two rivers coming into the Chesapeake Bay- very pretty indeed!



Naturally we had a few campfires; the second night we had a very colorful one as we found these sticks you could throw in that added quite the spectrum.

We spent a week packing for only 2 nights in the woods, but it was well worth the trip!

Summer's past.. more pictures found~

I found these pictures from July of this past summer. Some are from camping and some are from good ol' Artscape in Baltimore! Artscape 2010 was the weekend before the girls were born and we were out in full force walking around in 100 degree weather (hoping to get things moving); I guess it worked!

dad and lucy- post sunblock application

Is that a bear?? No its just dad...:) Lucy foreground

"That's really quite shocking mom!"--Lucy

Stella

Bear? No, racoon this time. Wait, thats Dad again! (Stella foreground)

Artscape

Stella and Lucy enojying Artscape 2011

The whole crew in the car-part lounge

Art Car exhibit: Berlin Wall

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Rocky Gap State Park

We have now completed camping trip #2 with the girls (still sans puppies). We decided on western Maryland this time- a bit further away than our suburban camping experience. The campground was considerably nicer at Rocky Gap however; I don't think I have seen cleaner bathrooms while camping... ever.

Dave spent a good half an hour attaching the stroller to the roof of the truck so we could bring it along this time. We never ended up using it however since we didn't want to spend the time taking it down:) We also brought a 2nd pack n' play along with our little noise machine. I attribute better baby sleeping to 1) They each had their own bed (one did not have to go on the floor next to us 2) the noise machine added a nice wave-seagull ambiance to the tent (it was like we had an ocean front campsite!); 3) they have started to get used to camping!

Stella

Lucy

Dad with Stella

We went to the beach at Lake Habeeb for the girls' first swimming experience. Lucy was not a happy camper when we put the sunblock on her - but once she was in the water she was all smiles. It took Stella a bit to get used to the whole experience but she was soon having fun as well- especially when we started playing with the mini pine tree-looking seaweed! I should note that Stella was the first one in the water!

The only thing that we kind of messed up on is that we did not prepare very well for the cold nights (i had checked the weather before we left and it appeared that it was not going to go below 75 at night, but it was wrong!). None of us had warm clothes with us so we had to get a bit creative. The girls used their own blankets plus a few of Daddy's t-shirts and we ended up using the girls play blanket as an extra cover.

Saturday night, after the girls fell asleep and we were chatting around the campfire- we saw a UFO. At first Dave pointed at the blinking light in the sky through the trees and said "Look at the satellite!"; all of a sudden it shot across the sky. We then thought maybe it was a shooting star, because satellites do not move that fast... right? All of a sudden it shot back- it was moving all over the place up there! We were pretty convinced we were having a super natural experience. And then, right before our eyes, the UFO zoomed down towards my face. This is when we realized that we had been watching a lightening bug the entire time.

After all was said and done, this experience went a lot smoother than last time!

First Camping trip with the Girls

So we haven't been camping since the girls were born and we decided to give it a shot for Father's Day weekend!

We stayed in Patapsco Valley State Park, which was our first time, which is kind of funny since it is only a 25-minute drive from our house. It is between Baltimore and DC. It is a beautiful park, and somewhat comical that it was a mere 5-minute excursion to a Starbucks (along with a host of other suburban supermarts) from our campsite. But lo and behold, while in our lovely site, you barely noticed that these things existed. We didn't even hear traffic, just the occasional train

.

We arrived late (after 8) on Friday evening and were able to get the tent up and fire going before

it got dark. All was going smoothly until we tried to get the girls to sleep. We only have one pack n' play so we figured that one of the girls would just sleep on a make-shift number next to us. It was not as easy as I had hoped and Dave ended up having to drive the girls around the campground loop a few times until they fell asleep. This is something that I have often heard of parents doing to get their little one asleep, and we haven't had to use this method until now! We had them in their car seats for a while and then transferred them to their sleeping quarters. Lucy only woke up once the first night; Stella was up several times. Then, thanks to the lack of blackout shades, she was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed

between 5AM and 7AM

(Dave and I were definitely not ready to be up yet considered our campfire was still burning at 2AM). Lucy woke up to eat at 7AM and that's when we decided we were going to have to relocate the girls back to their car seats and create some make-shift sun shades. This worked and they slept until 9AM.

I should also mention that we had a HUGE thunderstorm that started around 4AM with pouring rain and loud loud thunder (the girls surprisingly did NOT wake up during this). And we are happy to report that our tent continues to be fabulously waterproof!!

Saturday morning we drank homemade cold-press coffee and made a trip into suburbo for some hot breakfast sandwiches. We took a hike on the Ol Ranger trail through the Paw Paw trees. It

was beautiful and very shaded; it was fairly hilly terrain and we definitely got a work out dodging

rocks and roots, and climbing up and down- all with a baby attached to each one of us! The girls

still fit in their carriers (Baby Bjorn and a Fisher Price number) so we had them facing outward on the trek. I think its about time we look for the backpack kind however; dangling toes and strong legs tend to hit their parents in uncomfortable places!

We visited H Mart (which is an Asian specialty grocery store) to find food for dinner. From the selection of cow tongue, rabbit, and pigs feet- we ended up selecting a nice healthy portion of Halibut. We wrapped it in tin foil on the fire. One was marinated in a garlic/italian dressing for an hour and then other we cooked with butter and a lemon/ pepper/ salt mixture. Both of them turned out quite nice- the marinated one a bit better.

Shortly after dinner, I heard some rustling by the picnic table. Naturally I had to have Dave

check it out, since I was not going head-on with whatever it was.... We thought it was probably a squirrel, but it ended up being a big ol' raccoon digging in our trash that we had just lying around (oops). Fortunately, he wobbled out of there as soon as Dave shone the flashlight on his masked face.

Bed time, take two. This time Lucy was the non-sleeper. They had both fallen asleep in their car seats (it seemed to work well because we could rock them to sleep) .We couldn't let them cry it out in their beds because we had a couple new neighbors on both sides and the sound traveled a little too well. Lucy however, did not stay asleep- she was awake almost every hour. Then around 7AM Dave took her for a ride in the car so I could get a bit of sleep.

We left on Sunday after our morning fire.

After all was said and done, we had a good time, even though we were both quite sleep-deprived (a bit more than normal!). Since it was now Father's Day I knew who was going to get to take the nap when we got home:)