Supercalicamperlisticexpialidocious

Supercalicamperlisticexpialidocious

Here we go a campin.....We are off to see the world....

Seven years ago Steve and I packed up two large backpacking packs with food, tents, sleeping bags, water, energy bars, maps, cooking supplies, bug spray, water proof matches, raincoats, lint, and a first aid kit. We headed to the AT at Clingman's Dome in the Smoky Mountains. We began our journey of backpacking for 5 days. It only took an hour of hiking before there were no humans in sight. For the next 4 days we saw no one, only a few raccoons, a rattlesnake, deer, and one black bear. Total solitude, peace, raw nature. One of my favorite trips was being in the backcountry with monsoon rains and an engineer from Atlanta, and my brother-in-law and several other people. One can only imagine that an engineer would pull a wheelie cooler and Samsonite Luggage up a mountain! After the birth of our 2nd child we packed away our backpacking gear. Since then we have been on shorter day hikes with the kids, a little rock climbing for the oldest son, and bouldering. No camping, no backpacking. Now that the children are older the time has come to teach them about camping. A four and six year old are not quite old enough for a backpacking trip so that leads us to the Skamper.

This is me backpacking.

A friend called and said, "I know you love camping and my wife and I are selling our pop-up. We will give you a great deal on it". If you know me, I love deals, and a deal we got. We brought it home, set it up, and the kids climbed around inside it and talked about what they would do when we camping. Already dreaming about our first trip.

Why do we camp? Number one reason is camping with our children brings us back to the simplicity of nature. Camping increases our awareness of surroundings and refreshes the appreciation for the many things that so often go unnoticed. Patience is almost unavoidable, what greater lesson could we teach our children than patience. In nature there are so many amazing things to discover. Just think--the birds and animals, the plants and trees, the rocks, the streams and ponds, the insects, the sounds, the weather, the wildflowers, and the many activities that can provide so much excitement. The possibilities are endless!

There will be many more posts about our adventures. The first will come in one week as we are off to explore what Mother Nature has bestowed upon us.

Sleepy Kitty

Logan loves to baby her kitty. So when Maggie fell asleep in her dad's lap this is what she did. I think the kitty actually like it!

Rain...Rain...Rain

Well it is finally here....much needed rain. We love to go to the creek after it rains to see how much water is flowing. After 5-6 inches of rain in the past week this is what our creek looks like. Usually it only has a few inches, now it is at least 2-3 feet.

Geocachers

We found Geocaching.

We were watching our oldest son at ball practice one night a few weeks ago, our little ones were off looking for home run balls. We spot the two little ones running toward us with a box. They are both talking/squealing in high pitch voices, very excited about a "treasure" that they found. "What is this?", Steve asks. I told him, "Its a geocache".

What is geocaching? Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment. There are currently over 7oo,ooo people geocaching worldwide, and we just jumped on the bandwagon. The kids went home searched through their own treasures to find things that they could "trade". The next weekend we spent two days with the GPS, finding only about half of the caches we set out to find. It is very exciting when we find a cache, the kids really go wild. We cannot wait to geocache each weekend. We found out that there are 140+ caches within a 15 mile radius of our home!

There is a cache on the tank, after we searched for 45mins., we gave up. Later we found out that it is a micro-cache (size of a pill bottle) We were looking for something much bigger.

Outing to Martha Rivers Park

Decided to check out a new park today. We headed to Gastonia and found Martha Rivers Park. The kids loved it (so did I). The park has a castle theme and is even equipped with a misting spray to cool ya off in this heat! We will be visiting this park again!

Mini Office

Welcome to our Mini Office. What's a mini-office, you ask? Essentially it's a one-stop place for all those essentials that the kids might need while working on their school work. They can prop it up and find quick answers to some of their common questions.

Materials needed:
1-5 office file folders (depends on how big you want it to be)
worksheets you've printed off or created
glue sticks
contact paper I took mine to a local teaching store and had all four I made laminated for $4.

Putting it together:
Glue your file folders together side by side, overlaping one side of each. Be sure that the folders can still fold up inside each other.
Print off the worksheets and things that you want to put into your office and place them where you want them.
Glue your charts and worksheets in with glue sticks and laminate.

Example of items that it could include:

Left/Right hands
Mr. Gallon Man

Continents and Oceans
Paper money and coins
Months of the year
Colors and color words
Counting to 20 and number words
Cursive Alphabet chart

Ordinals and Skip counting
Short and Long vowels

Parts of Speech

Nolan was very excited and spent alot of time looking and investigating it.

Just tinkering around

New design I came up with last night.

Our First Day of School

We did it. Today we had our first "official" school day for the 2008-2009 school year. We had many yawns, sighs, and I am tired of writing comments. But in the end they did it, they completed their day with smiles of achievement. Now I need a nap.

Nolan working on Addition & Subtraction

Logan working a puzzle

Cody working on a map of the US

Chimney Rock Hike

The kids did it, they hiked to the waterfalls at Chimney Rock and they also hiked the Woodland kids trail! A total of about 4 miles and moderate elevation change. It was about 95 degrees outside but we sweated through it to the top of the mountain. Cody went into the Waterfall when we finally made it. Chase carried his pack with water and food. He too went for a swim!
Chase the dog with his pack.

At the top of the Chimney.
Our three little nuts
The kids, dog, and Steve in the water at the base of the waterfall