Indiana Dunes State Park

Our next trip with our camper was to Indiana Dunes State Park.  It's about 3 hours north of us along Lake Michigan.  It's the closest thing to a beach we can get living in Indiana!

We visited here last summer and stayed in a house that we rented...this summer, we reserved a site at the State Park campground - and it was PERFECT!
We actually concluded that is was better for our family and WAY more fun to stay in a space that allowed for the kids to play, ride bikes, adventure in the woods and just be outside vs. the comforts and blessings of beds, bathrooms and showers!  We have definitely been bit by the camping bug!

Each night we would head to the beach to watch the sunset over Chicago, across Lake Michigan, far in the distance.  But as the sun sets, it literally glows - it's beautiful!

We hiked multiple trails, with the most memorable, difficult and entertaining one being Mount Jackson - appropriately, Jackson fussed, cried, yelled and whined the entire climb up the sand covered mountain (dune, really).  It was super hard, but the child on your back added to the difficulty and ultimate hilarity of the entire trip!

We had a great time!

*as we were packing up, a woman came up to me and pulled me aside.  She asked if she could speak to me for a second (which of course means I'm expecting the worst!)
She begins to tell me what a pleasure it was to watch our family interact these past 3 days.  She commented on how well our kids got along.  She appreciated how kind we were to our children.  She said she's seen ALOT of families camp at this campground (we were literally right behind them), as she's been coming here for nearly 20 years, and she said we topped her list of wonderful families :)

If only she knew the looks I was giving my children as I "shooshed" them to go to bed at night...or what the car rides with constant bickering sound like...she may change her mind...but, I'll take it!

We may not be perfect, but overall, we really do enjoy camping together. :)

Last Day of School - Morgan in K, Joey in 2nd grade

What a great school year each of the kids had at the Oaks this year!
Morgan had Mrs. Chizum and loved every minute of it! 
Joey had Mrs. Holman and did wonderfully as well!
We are so thankful for our school - The Oaks Academy!

Memorial Day at Cat and Captian Jer's Lake House

We had a wonderful time at Aunt Cat and Captain Jer's house over Memorial Day.  My cousin Kim and her kids flew in from Colorado to visit and we all had a great time together.
I am VERY impressed that everyone (except Jackjack) go on the tube! 
They all enjoyed playing together (on the boat, at the dock and in the house) and we all enjoyed spending time together - we love that Cat lives on Morse now!

Mounds State Park

We decided to take our very first family camping trip of the season to the closest Sate Park to our home.

There is quite a learning curve to understanding -
What to pack?
What to eat?
What to leave at home?
 What to leave in the Camper?
What to keep in the van vs. in the camper?
Where should we each sleep?
How is it to drive with a camper hitched to the back of the van?
and one last question we were hoping to never have to answer - WHAT TO DO IF IT RAINS!?

We arrived and got our camper set up - which is an experience in and of itself!
And then, it started to drizzle....so we headed to bed without a campfire and hoped the next day would be better. We awoke the next morning and we went on a hike throughout the state park.

It's called Mounds for a very good reason. There are ancient mounds that were built hundreds of years ago. They were pretty interesting and the kids enjoyed discovering them throughout the hike.

We got back to the campsite for lunch and the rains came yet again... So we played for a good while in the camper and then headed to Anderson University, where our nephew MJ was playing a basketball tournament. We watched the game, went out to dinner at the Lemon Drop Inn (a historic, nostalgic greasy spoon that has been around for decades) and headed back to the camp site as the skies opened and the stars came out.
We finally got to use the campfire and made s'mores and then headed to bed. It was a great first camping trip of the season and really helped me (us) get get a better handle on this whole camping thing!