Making Life Meaningful
Our family loves to camp. I am married to a man who loves roughing it. When I say “roughing” I mean, no electricity, no running water, and no one around for miles.
But our kids absolutely love it! We make an intentional effort to schedule a camping trip twice a year. Jason’s uncle has a huge piece of land on the river and we love it there.
There is another place close to home that has a cave that we love as well. Both places suit our needs perfectly. They both have spring-fed water on the property to take a quick bath from a bucket. It is also where we gather our drinking and cooking water.
Some of the most memorable things we do while camping happen spontaneously, like finding a tire and making a swing. We hunt for bugs and wild berries. We found dewberries one year and topped our skillet fried pancakes with it.
Jason and I love giving the little ones an opportunity to crack eggs and pour the batter onto the skillet to make breakfast for the family.
As our children became old enough, we added challenges, like competing who can make the best primitive shelter and giving them 2 or 3 hours to do it in. Other competitions would include 2 or 3 teams trying to start a fire with only 1 match. This makes for a lot of funny moments and most importantly, working together in unity.
My older kids always talk about how fun it is to get up in the middle of their slumber, sit by the crackling of the campfire under the starry night, while daddy reads a story.
Jason loves teaching our kids how to build a good fire and start it with a flint. He loves teaching them all things survival.
We bring all the food on ice and cook it the old fashioned way, over the fire in an iron skillet or dutch oven. We cook everything from homemade blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs, to ham and beans or roasted chicken. It is some of the best conversations and memories we have had as a family.
There is no internet or cell phone service where we camp and my husband wouldn’t have it any other way. Living in the great outdoors for a week at a time has allowed us to be better communicators, be better listeners, and hopefully be more patient with each other.
Everything we do while we camp takes four times as long. In the end, it is well worth the time invested when you work with each other to do something challenging.
The most important thing that Jason will take time for is prayer with our family. He is so good at leading by example of a patient, grateful, and humble human being. He really walks what he talks and every year that passes I am so grateful for his leadership. It is the best gift our children can witness from a dad.
The best part about camping as a mama is making memories together. There is something special about having no agenda, relaxing in the wilderness, and keeping it simple. And to boot, there is no kitchen to clean! Muddy kids, yes, but all laughs set aside, I wouldn’t want to spend my weekends any other way but in nature.
We had a family of children stay with us one week and thought it would be fun to take the older ones camping and I stay with all the young ones at home. It was early spring and the weather looked a perfect 65 degrees. As they hammered in their tent stakes it started to snow! One thing they all came back and said, “Camping rule number one! Never trust the weather man. It’s the only job where you can always be wrong and never get fired.”
Even though they were cold, they were dressed for it, packed lots of supplies, had great meals, and made great memories! Great job dad! You can make something that could have been so miserable, into something they will never forget. One of the things I am grateful for is that my husband tries to have the right response in every situation. He always says, “You may not always be able to make it better, but you can always make it worse.” And that is so very true. Thanks for being you dad. You were our sunshine on those cold, snowy camping nights.
Natalie