Servant of God: July – Family Camping Trip…

Friday, July 20, 2012

July – Family Camping Trip…

One of Matthew’s favorite things in the world is to go camping which is something I always enjoyed growing up. He wanted to go camping so bad last summer but since I was super swamped with school and wedding planning he had to make do with having a fire outside my parents house and laying on blankets. Of course this year he jumped on the opportunity to go camping with a group of his friends.

I never realized how much work went into the preparation for a camping trip since I always just had to pack my clothes before but being a wife and mother this time I had to make sure everything was packed. Of course being super organized I made a list of everything we would need (or at least everything I thought of… we did forget a few items that would have been nice). Also, I made a list for the meals and all the grocery shopping I would need to do. In order to help it fit into our budget (as best as I could) I ended up going shopping at four different stores to buy everything and I spent days making our own ice so we wouldn’t have to buy any. Since we don’t have much camping gear ourselves it was nice to have friends and family that were willing to loan us there stuff.

Matthew’s friends were planning on being there from Friday to Sunday but we decided to make the most of it and take a couple extra days to be together as a family. It was a nice time getting to know his friends better but I also enjoyed the quiet of just our family. Matthew and I spent a lot of time just enjoying the beauty of God’s creation and reading. I was able to finish the book Radical which was very convicting in so many ways. One of the things it encouraged people to do was read the Bible in a year. Matthew and I decided to take on this challenge but of course with all the free time to just sit and read we got a bit ahead and now I am on a read the Bible in 4 months plan.

Shane of course loved playing with the other kids and got lots of use out of his pellet gun. He was able to set up targets on the other side of the lake. He got pretty good at hitting the targets. Matthew also took him driving for the first time. It was a very rough start as he is a nervous driver but after a couple tries he started to enjoy himself. He is definitely going to need a lot more practice before he can drive on a real road… I guess it is a good thing he still has a couple more years to go.

We ended up staying until Wednesday afternoon which gave us a good couple days on our own. Thankfully Matthew’s friends piled up some firewood for us and I was smart enough to pack some extra food so we had just enough for the days we were there. This was the first of many camping trips to come in the future. Even though it is a lot of work preparing and cleaning up it is definitely worth it just to spend a couple days out in nature.