A camping We Will Go!

Oh how I LOVE camping. My favorite place to camp locally is O’Neill Regional Park. Doesn’t hurt that it’s about 20 minutes from home and feels like you are in a world away.

A woodsy world filled with wild animals, the sweet sounds of coyotes howling at night, the smell of a campfire, the taste of s’mores,  the hiking, the sight of the kids running around playing- being disconnected from electronics. It is wonderful!

I want to share with you a fun game to play with the kiddos while camping:

Camping Tic Tac Toe

Pretty self-explanitory.  Find 4 sticks (not a problem) arrange in tic tac toe style,  then find some rocks, pinecones, leaves, whatever as their “marker”- let the kids use their imagination! I’m not kidding you guys, my kids played this for hours. Ok maybe not hours, but they played for a long time and continued to return to play the game.

Here’s a fun recipe my hubby came up with for camping. We usually do the traditional hot dogs/baked beans over the fire type of dinner, but we wanted something different this time. We WERE NOT disappointed. This was DELISH!

Campfire Cheesy Potato Dinner

This meal can be prepped ahead of time. Wash, peel and thinly slice approx 6 russet potatoes. Layer potatoes, shredded cheese, bacon and your meat of choice (we used cut up smoked sausage) in a disposable tin (found at any grocery store). The idea is to create a potato “lasagna” type dish. We threw this dish on the grill for approx 30 minutes. Of course, you could always cook this over a fire- cooking time will vary. Top this dish with chopped green onions, if desired. It’s super yummy, and with our family of 4 we had lots of leftovers for the next day!

Another fun thing to do that we discovered last year, is to roast Starburst over the campfire. Yep. You heard me right. Now I’m by no means saying to skip the s’mores (please don’t!) but a fun thing you might consider adding to your packed bags is a package of Starburst candy (did I mention the kids go nuts for this?!)

All you do is unwrap, stick the candy onto the end of a marshmallow skewer and roast until it starts to bubble a little bit (be careful, these are super HOT! Don’t roast too long, or the whole candy will drip off the skewer!) Took us a few times to get the hang of it!

So excited to be returning to O’Neill next weekend for one last camping trip of the summer. Cheap, fun, family vacay close to home… yes, please!