Our summer begins...

Hello my friends!

Sorry for the long silence here; we just got back from a semi-impromptu camping trip!  Just after I last posted here, M and I started throwing around the idea of a summer getaway to celebrate having survived the spring quarantine and remote learning.  We thought a camping trip would probably be a safer way to travel, Covid-wise, since we'd be using all of our own stuff and staying outside for the majority of the trip.  After a little internet research told me that New York State parks were accepting camping reservations beginning the Monday after our girls finished school, we jumped at the chance and booked the trip.

Because M and I haven't been camping since before any of the girls were born, we had to invest in some updates to our equipment-- the main purchase being an 8-man tent.  We also purchased things like mess kits and sleeping bags for the girls, and a newer and larger set of stackable camping pots and pans, among other things.  So this didn't end up being a tightwad vacation in the way that camping was before we had kids, because of the initial "stuff" investment.  However, now that we have our camping inventory all set, we are ready to go for any future adventures, and given the success of this last trip, I'm thinking there will definitely be more camping in our future!

The girls finished school on Friday June 19, and we spent the weekend packing, organizing, and prepping food for the journey.  L took these pictures as we were getting ready:

We left Monday June 22 and returned very late Saturday night (the 28th).

I'm hoping to recap our adventures soon, but I don't think that will happen today.  My brain is slow due to sleep deprivation over the trip (suffice it to say the struggle is REAL with territorial raccoons in the NY state parks) so I'm going to need a few days' recovery before writing too much here.  Just to give you an idea, M and I went to bed around midnight Saturday after we had arrived, gotten the girls in their beds, and put all of our cooler food in the fridge.  I was then dead to the world and slept until 10 AM the following morning.  Can you believe that??? 10 AM.  It was surely during my teenage years that I last slept so late.  The sleep deprivation was absolutely worth it, however-- it was a completely epic trip and I'm looking forward to telling you all about it!

For now, I am really enjoying a couple days of complete R&R-- M and I have been veeerrry slowly unpacking the car, washing things, putting everything away, doing laundry, and enjoying a good amount of just laying around and resting and looking back on our awesome pictures of the many cool places we saw.

I hope that you all have had a great start to your summer, too!