We’d been talking about camping for a while. If you guys follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen all the pictures from all the hikes and such that I’ve gone on recently (and it’s really not that many – but it’s so many more than zero, which is what I was doing before). First Landing State Park camping seemed like the easiest thing to do with the kids – if we needed to bail, we could. If Piper or Wren decided that camping wasn’t for them, the house is just 20 minutes away. We even had a backup plan in Aunt Becky to take them so we could keep camping if we wanted to. We had to try, though!
I preach it all the time, but it’s so important to take time off and take time to yourself. I was lucky that Chris & the girls had Spring Break off, and we could go with our friends on this little adventure. It was only two nights, but you could tell that the girls loved it.
My aunts took me camping every year when I was a kid for our birthdays, and I was hoping that my kids would love being out there as much as I do – and they did (except the bathroom situation, but, they dealt with it). The great thing about First Landing State Park is that there are so many great options for things to do – you can keep the kids busy – without a tablet.
There was actually a day that we opted to give the girls tablet time during “quiet time”, and they took us up on it – for about 30 minutes. Then they wanted to get back outside and keep doing the camping thing, and that was pretty freaking awesome.
It helped that our friends were there with us. We love Mike & Loren and their kids, and the girls were always looking forward to going over to their campsite and playing with them.
As a business owner, it’s super hard to take time off sometimes. I definitely checked my email on my phone every day, and made sure that all the notifications were handled for my clients, but I didn’t bring my laptop. I made a conscious decision NOT to work, and it was freaking fantastic. There’s no doubt that I love my job, but it’s so important to take that time to yourself, to your family, to your friends, and really enjoy life. That’s what we did.
This next part was, by far, my favorite part of the trip. We rode bikes up to the beach access and watched the sunset and collected shells, and the kids were all precious and awesome and it was perfect.
Take some time. Schedule it for yourself. It’s the best thing ever – and coming back to work wasn’t stressful. I made sure that I did all the work that I needed to do before I left. I answered a few emails every day so I didn’t come home to hours of emails to do on Monday. The kids were precious, they made it camping, and it was a fun couple of days of adventure.
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