Our upcoming camping trip or rather "glamping"

I do not come from a long line of campers.  If anything, my family (myself included) can sometimes be a hotel snob.  We like to save money and get the best deal, but I remember more than one time switching hotels if it wasn't up to par.  So what has my 6 year old son been clambering to do for the past two years?  Go camping, of course.  Luckily, my brother does enjoy camping, like real camping, in a tent in the woods and everything.  So our plan was to have my son first go camping in the backyard so that he could work his way up to going camping with my brother.

But a couple of months ago, I was browsing online when I found Lake in Wood Campground.  This campground had everything that I could hope for with our family of two kids: two playgrounds, outdoor swimming pool, kiddie pool, covered swimming pool, mini golf, hay rides, fire engine rides, hiking trails, bingo, arcade, restaurant and of course a lake for fishing! 
 
Plus it is located in Pennsylvania Dutch Country and I love the Amish :) 

Yes, I know they don't like having their pictures taken, I didn't take the pic! :b

You can go to Lake In Wood Campground to go camping in a tent, use your RV or rent one of their Unique Rentals.

Unique is definitely the word, you can choose from a Caboose, a Treehouse, a Yurt, a Ship, a Covered wagon and more.  We decided to go a little less unique and chose a cabin.  This is where the "glamping" part of the camping comes in.  We're staying at the Lake View Cabin. 

The Lake View Cabin was actually our second choice, but our first choice was already booked.  Therefore it's actually a little bigger than we actually need. It sleeps 2 adults and 4 children (we only have two).  But the sleeping arrangements for 2 kids includes two bunk beds, so now I won't have the hassle of dealing with my kids arguing who sleeps where.  If they both want to sleep on the top they can (not really, because my three year old would fall right off, I'm hoping they both choose to sleep on the bottom).  The cabin also includes a bathroom, refrigerator, coffeemaker, toaster, gas grill, microwave, TV and Air Conditioner.  Now that's my kind of roughing it :b Truthfully the cost is not that cheap, we could have easily gotten a hotel in the area for less, but it's a great way to introduce my family (and me!) to camping and there is so much to do that I think we're going to have a wonderful trip!

Project 365

I've decided that I want to attempt Project 365. Project 365 in it's simplest form is the attempt to take one picture every day for a year. Many people use expensive cameras and try to improve their photography skills, while others just take photos with their iPhone. I will be doing the latter. Since I always have my iPhone close by, this will increase the likelyhood that I'll actually get that one picture a day. I also just downloaded an free app appropriately titled Project 365. This app will send me reminders each day to take a picture and has a calendar set up to add a picture to each day in the calendar.

As a mom, this idea is really intriguing to me because it's true- time flies when you're having fun! I can't believe how quickly my boys are growing up, already 6 and 3, no longer babies! I do not have the greatest memory, so these pictures will help me to remember some of the little everyday things that mean so much!

Most people start this project at the beginning of the year or maybe even the beginning of the school year. Me? I'm starting it at absolutely no special date in my life of March 8!

Feel free to come join me on this fun project!

Delaware Family Expo- Today!

Did you know that there is a Delaware Family Expo going on today at the Chase Center on the Riverfront?  I just read about it while skimming through the online version of Delaware's Out and About Magazine.

The Family Expo will be today from 10am- 4 pm or 5 pm, depending on the website that you go to, but I think it's 4 pm.   It is free admission and promises to connect you with local companies that will strengthen, entertain, and encourage your children and family as well as having costumed characters, indoor golf, an inflatable slide and many more special surprises.

Some local companies that will be there include the Brandywine Zoo, Delaware Nature Society, The Little Gym of Wilmington and the Wilmington Blue Rocks.

You just might see me there looking for fun summer camps for my boys!

Wordless Wednesday: Brothers #WW

Our version of The Upside Down Show

My 5 year old is all about videos, he watches them on youtube and he's made a few of them himself.  They usually revolve around Thomas the Tank Engine, but for his last video, he wanted to do the Upside Down Show.  If you've seen the Upside Down Show before, you will get it, if you have not, you will not.  Sorry it got cut off, my camera ran out of space!

Wordless Wednesday- Beach with Cool Pop

My boys at the beach with their Cool Papa Bob aka their grandfather/ my dad.

Our new family go to beach- Lewes Beach

We're very lucky to have a house in Rehoboth that we can go to anytime we want for free- my grandparents place! My husband took off on Monday so that we could enjoy a long weekend. We headed down Saturday morning and came back home to Wilmington Monday early afternoon. In that time, we went to Lewes Beach twice, out to eat, to the Rehoboth Boardwalk and my husband took our five year old to Mini Golf for his first time. And of course we spent time with my grandparents, my parents and cousins.

My family's favorite beach for a while now has been Tower Beach (which is a state park) because it used to be pretty uncrowded.  But I think the secret is out now, because it seems like for the past couple of years Tower Beach has gotten a lot more crowds. 

Now that we have young kids, the beach that we tend to go to is Lewes Beach because the waves are much more calm and we can feel more comfortable with our 2 1/2 year old and 5 year old playing in the water.

My parents are major beach bums who will stay on the beach for up to 8 hours each day.  While we enjoy the beach that's just too much for us with kids (even without).  We've found that it works out best for us to bring the kids onto the beach after 2:30/3 and then to stay for a couple of hours.  By this time, the crowds have died down a bit, it's easier to find parking and the sun is not too hot.  When parking at Lewes Beach during prime times, it can be very difficult to find a parking spot, my husband once spent over an hour trying to find a spot.  But every time we have gone later in the afternoon we have had no problems at all.  Parking is $1.50 per hour, so bring lots of quarters with you. 

Don't worry Rehoboth, your boardwalk still has my heart :)

Date Night Scheduled

This is the most recent pic I could find of a date night that my husband and I recently went on.  Fancy, huh?  It was a Benefit Gala back in April.  I know that we've gone on at least one date night since then (looking a lot less fancy), but probably only one and it was for our wedding anniversary.

This weekend we were planning on joining family down in Rehoboth Beach to celebrate the holiday weekend, but yesterday our 5 year old Beluga woke up not feeling good and slept about the whole day.  We decided to see how he felt this morning to decide if we would go down.  He felt better, but not 100% and we didn't think that going to the beach in the hot sun when you aren't feeling too great would be good for him.  So we are home for the weekend- a 3 day weekend.  It's rare that we have weekends where we don't have any plans.  So, I decided that tomorrow night would be a great time to take on Life Without Pink and MommyFriend's July Project Marriage Challenge- to have a Date Night.

So as long as my hubbie's parents are up for watching the boys, we're going on a date night!  Part of the challenge is to try and go the whole night without talking about the kids.  Now that will be difficult, but I'm going to try and keep the kid talk to a minimum.  I might have to read the paper tomorrow to have something to talk about :b  Now we have to decide where to go.

 Edit:  About 2 hours after I wrote this blog, my 2 1/2 year old woke up from his nap with a fever!  He's starting to feel better, but still isn't great.  So Date Night will not be happening tonight :(  Maybe we'll try to rent a movie or something?

Storybook Land- Great Jersey Family Attraction!

My family and I just got back home from our first trip to Storybook Land.  Storybook Land is located in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, pretty close to Atlantic City.  It took us a little less than 1 1/2 hours to get there from my home in Wilmington, Delaware.  If you've never been to Storybook Land before, think of a place like Dutch Wonderland, but a bit smaller without a large water area.  Storybook Land has been around for almost 56 years which is evident by some of the 1950s charm and nostalgic displays they have.

On this trip were me, my mother-in-law, a family friend, my 5 year old son Beluga and my 2 year old son Christopher.  This is a place that was perfect for kids their ages.  Both of my sons were able to go on any ride if they chose to.  Many of the rides, my 2 year old was too little to go on by himself, but was able to go on with an adult, which is perfectly fine. 

Today was a customer appreciation day, which meant that tickets were 25% off.  We were also chosen out of the line to get free cups (that had lids and straws) for our party that we were able to have filled with soda, water or lemonade for free whenever we wanted!  This was a very nice surprise to start our day off with.

The theme of Storybook Land is, of course, nursery rhymes and story books.  When we first got into the area the first thing we saw was the Hickory Dickory Dock, which was a large clock that had a mouse going up and down it.  Now as a grown person you may not be impressed, but my 2 year old, for some reason, was enthralled.  He kept wanting to go back and see this clock and the mouse that is hidden for a minute and then comes back up the clock then down the clock.  He loved it.

The first official ride that we went on was the Railroad train, which is necessary for my train loving Beluga.  This was a great way to see what is around the park when you first get there.  As I mentioned, it's not a large park about 20 acres of cute family fun.  Another thing that Beluga loved was the Alice in Wonderland maze, we had to go through that twice. 

Everyone had a great day and was very satisfied with the trip.  The only part that didn't go well was during lunch we were eating at the Dining Depot and my mother-in-law went up to the counter to get her customer appreciation cup refilled.  The older lady working the counter got an attitude with her and told her "you know, there are other areas where you can get your cup refilled", my MIL explained that we were eating lunch in there, which did not seem to satisfy this worker.  Talk about customer service!  But that was the exception to the rule because every other staff member that we interacted with was very friendly, courteous and seemed to enjoy having the children around having a great time.

Another thing that I enjoyed about Storybook Land is that it was not very crowded.  We went on a Monday, so I'm sure this makes a difference, but we felt very comfortable just taking our time visiting everything at our own pace. We got to the park a little before 10:30 am and left around 2:45.  We could have stayed a bit longer, but we had seen most of the park and the kids were starting to get a bit tired.  There are probably only about 20 rides, but my 5 year old would have been happy riding a couple of them multiple times.

This is a great place for little ones, but if you have a child 10, they might not be thrilled and you may have to take a picture of them because they didn't mind their mother :b  If you do have young children and are looking for something to do for a day trip, you should consider Story Book Land.  It's also good for frugal families because although the price is not cheap at $21.95, it is free for 1 years and under, 25% off all tickets on customer appreciation days and you are welcome to bring your own food and drinks inside and they have a partially covered picnic area available close to bathrooms where we saw many families with coolers.

To find out more, visit Story Book Land

Sidenote: We saw two chipmunks in the park while we were there.  They do have animals there, such as "Mary's Little Lamb", but these guys were not part of the attractions.  I've never actually seen chipmunks in real life, they are so small!