Vacation is over and now its back to work

What an awful title to a blog post! But sometimes the truth hurts lol. I am starting my first real week of my last YEAR IN COLLEGE! It is going to one hell of a year, but I know it will be over before I know it. So lets GET IT ON! Its on like Donkey Kong!

But Lets not talk about those nasty tid bits of life, even though some of the up coming bits of life do suck. But lets start with the good parts and talk about our weekend camping get away with the kids:

We packed up the kids and gear and headed off to Stokes State Forrest out in Branchville, NJ. It has always been the place to go when the camping bug bites us. It was the one of the first places I took my girlfriend, now wife, on vacation. It isn't really roughing it but it is enough for us lol.

Who wants something to eat from Dale's? Dale's market is always our last stop before we venture into the land of bugs, ticks and bears!



Here is our site, the only real problem with Stokes is that it is soooo damn rocky. You cannot really stake down a tent right, there isn't any dirt!



The whole trip consisted of us telling the kids to stop running, because we knew what was going to happen. And sure enough Lucas was the first to get first aid because of fall. It only stopped him for a few minutes though lol



This year we went with a lean-to instead of a tent. Note to self: Bring more padding for sleeping on and some industrial wasp/bug/spider spray! I did love the stove they had in there, its the same type I would love to have in my house someday.



This year we went with our neighbors, we were supposed to have lean-tos right next to each other but that one had some problems with hornets. Don't you just hate it when mother nature gets in the way?



The best part about camping? The FIRE! I don't know what it is about chopping wood and burning it, but god damn it I love doing it!



My mom gave us some farm fresh pork chops and sausage to take with us. And I must say that stuff was 100 time better than any meat I have ever bought at the supper market!



And the next best part: Smores and camp fire stories. I don't know where they got the idea from but they wanted scary stories by the campfire. They must have been watching the same show or something. So we all took turns trying to scare them, I told a pretty good one. But while the wife was telling hers I 'went out to pee' and crept up behind them and scared the bah-jesus out of them. Memories that will last a life time hahahaha



I do love camping but I sure did love the shower I took when I got home. But I must say this time around we did not over pack. I am bad at that, I always prepair for every possible thing. So I end up with soooo much damn crap that I spend more time packing and un packing than anything else. I did forget a few items but nothing major.




Things to remember for next trip:

Spatula, I had to use my butcher knife this time.

A big bucket, luck for us our neighbors remembered one

My tackle box, again lucky we went with other people

No rinse camp soap

Hornet spray

And make sure the first aid kit is well stocked with bandages, we used them all up this time around :-D

Backyard camping

We have been trying to get out to the great outdoors for sometime but this that and everything has stopped us. But last week we put our foot down...until the weather man called for below freezing temps and snow. And not being all that well equipped for that kind of camping we took it to the backyard:



This was more of a spring cleaning of all the stuff we have accumulated in the past 12 years. Taking stock in what we have and what we need. I now know I need a new sleeping bag, blankets and sheets are just not the same lol.
I was able to get rid of a bunch of stuff that was old, broken or missing parts. We have three tens, two of which we put up and the other has never been used. So it is safe to say that one is still good lol. The two tents worked perfectly, no rips, holes or issues with any of them. Tent test 100%

Now when camping in the backyard in urban areas you have to be careful with where you put the camp fire.....you cannt have a camp site without a camp fire...duh! So we borrowed this homemade fire pit made from an old beer keg. And it worked like a charm!



And as you can see one of most entertaining things one can do while camping is finding random stuff to burn! Luckily Devon brought some old homework that had to go down in flames haha!



And as the weather man stated, it was cold even far away from the mountains it was cold. Lucas did come out for a few moments to see what we were up to. But it was just too cold for him to stay out too long.



As the night wore on we started to wonder what could we do for fun.....so we came up with the idea to run a power cord and hook up the Xbox for some COD in the great outdoors. Nothing says camping in the backyard like fresh air video games!



We all slept outside in the cold, like real men. And the wife kept saying "If you catch a cold I dont want to hear it!" Well it has been 6 days since we survived the long cold night and no one has gotten sick. Just remember kids....take you vitamins, drink your milk and masturbate everyday to keep the bad germs away.

After breaking camp we organized everything and moved all the camping gear to our place. It is now packed away all set to go if we should ever have the urge to just pick up and pretend to be homeless again. We also took this time to get all of our Xmass stuff organized as well. Now that we have a place to store stuff we are getting everything organized, once everything has its place it will be easier to find.