The Great Outdoors

When I think of myself now, I don't at all consider myself an outdoorsy type of person.

But looking back at my childhood, I do actually think I used to be pretty outdoorsy. My house growing up had a lot of land, and I remember running around the woods with my best friend from (waaaay) across the street, climbing trees, "swimming" in the creek that flooded my other neighbor's yard when it rained, making "pottery" from good ol' NC clay we dug up, and hanging in her awesome tree house. I think we were probably outside exploring more than we played inside (without a care in the world about snakes, spiders and other creepy crawlies that were undoubtedly crossing our paths, unbeknownst to us).

And not only that, but I have fond memories of camping way back when I was in girl scouts and church youth group. I definitely did more of the cabin and platform tent camping on cots at girl scout camp, which I loved. What's not to love about one big weekend- or week-long sleepover with friends in the middle of the woods, with a lake to swim in and a campfire to roast marshmallows?

What I tolerated, but never loved though, was camping on the hard ground in tents in the middle of nowhere and peeing in the woods in the dark. Especially after an unfortunate incident at a girl scout sleepover in my back yard, where my mom later told me she discovered a snake had crawled under our tent at some point and was directly underneath us as we slept! ::shudder::

Ultimately, I think I got my fill of camping when I was younger and fully outgrew any urge I may have had to sleep in the woods. I've become far too accustomed to my pillow-top mattress, temperature-controlled and bug-free house, and indoor plumbing just steps away from my bed.

But this? This makes me {almost} want to pop a tent right here on the edge of the lake and stay forever--comforts of home be damned.





While my kids aren't in scouts and don't have free reign over woods to explore or creeks to swim in like I did, they do have awesome grandparents who bought a pop-up camper, rented a spot at Jordan Lake, and took Aidan and Logan for a two-night camping trip.



Adam, Lorelai and I took the boys out there last Monday to drop them off and have a cookout on the lake.





For two days, they fished, canoed, cooked over a campfire, whittled sticks, hiked, and just generally enjoyed nature. Pure and simple.



Granted, the camper isn't as rustic as sleeping in a tent (it has a TV, sink and stove!) but I'm so glad Aidan and Logan were able to experience camping. In fact, I'm kind of jealous of them, despite my previous utter lack of desire to go camping as an adult.





Maybe when Lorelai is a bit older, we'll look into getting a tent and "roughing it" (with air mattresses, because let's be real:)) for a great outdoors adventure.

Well done, mother nature. Well done.




PS: with the exception of noiseware and a bit of added contrast on the silhouette photos, all of these are unedited iphone photos. Boom.