This post is sponsored by the J.M. Smucker company through a campaign with Sverve. All opinions expressed are 100% my own. If you haven't figured out from my Instagram feed, my family has been spending a TON of time on our boat this summer. It's our first year getting a slip at a marina vs trailering it and we have not regretted the decision. This year, in addition to every weekend, we spent two full weeks on our boat on the river. The first week was at the beginning of the summer where we camped on an island for 3 days, the second week was two weeks ago where we traveled up and down the river. More to come on that later... So how do I prepare for all this time on the river? I head to Walmart! It has become my SNACKATION Destination! Walmart, along with the J.M. Smucker company have some great options for snacks that aren't your usual chips and cookies (which my girls get easily tired of). On our list of SNACKATION snacks we include Jif To Go Dippers and Jif Chocolate … [Read more...]
Free Customizable Camping List Printable
My family loves camping. Whether it be camping in our back yard, camping on our boat, or even having a camping birthday party, we camp at least once a year. You'd think that with how many times we camp that I'd have packing down to a tee. The thing is, I HATE packing. Packing for anything causes me huge anxiety. I'm not quite sure why. It's probably because my family moved a lot when I was younger. To help with packing for camping, I made a camping list printable of everything our family takes on our trips. Now packing (at least to go camping) is a breeze and we rarely forget anything! I thought I'd share my printable camping supply list with you to make your packing easy too! I've included things that we've packed when our girls were babies and even things we take for our dogs. This list is completely customizable so you can make it your own without a lot of thought. See the directions for customization below. Click on the photo above or click HERE to download. To … [Read more...]
Family Camping On A Boat
Two years ago our family bought a 25 foot boat with a full cuddy including a bed, small kitchen area, and small bathroom. After having a 19 foot fish-and-ski for a few years we decided to upgrade to something a little more family friendly. What we didn't realize when we purchased the bigger boat is how many wonderful family memories we would make on it. We bought the boat late in the summer of the first year so we spent most of that summer just learning the ropes of it and cruising around the lake and up and down the river. Last summer was our first time camping with it. We spent two nights beached on an island in the St. Croix river. The whole family loved it. This year hubby and I planned our schedules so we could take a four day camping trip on the river. As Mother Nature would have it, it's been raining galore in our area and the river is flooded out. All the lakes in the area are flooded also. The girls were disappointed that we would not be taking our trip. So...I … [Read more...]
Camping Birthday Party Ideas + FREE Printable
Nutty's 7th birthday was last week. I don't know why, but she insisted on having a camping themed birthday and having a sleepover. So...because I'm such a great mom, we had a campover birthday. Twelve girls total (including Nutty and Tottie) with six of them camping overnight in a tent in our back yard. What was I thinking?! I searched all over Pinterest for ideas for her party but I'm not one to go way overboard with decor and things. I just wanted ideas... It started with Nutty's invitations. She really liked this invitation. Though the site somewhat told you how to make them, the author of the post admits she had a hard time coming up with an appropriate pattern. I did some more searching and couldn't come up with one either. After over an hour of cutting, measuring, re-cutting, folding, etc, I finally came up with my own pattern. To save our lovely readers some time, I thought I'd actually share my pattern with you so you can easily make your own tent invitations! … [Read more...]
Back Yard Camping
Hubby and I are very much into tent camping. Part of the money we received from our wedding was spent on high quality camping gear, and before we had kids, we camped multiple times a summer. It became a lot harder, however, when the girls were little. It took too much effort to pack up a bunch of baby items. Hubby and I decided that we would instead, begin to teach our girls to camp using our back yard. It has been a once-a-summer family tradition every since. Back yard tent camping has most of the same opportunities as real camping without all the hassle and with some of the comforts of home (such as a nice bathroom for my picky girls). Though we still try to go real camping, we make sure to camp in our back yard at least once a summer. We use our fire pit to cook over the fire, roast marshmallows, and keep warm as the rule is you can only go inside to go to the bathroom once we've begun our camping adventure. If you're not really into the hassle of real camping or have … [Read more...]
