Camping Season & Other Ways to Say "I like You"

Memorial Day brings with it the beginning of the camping season.  It takes the kids out of the house and away from the game systems.  Our rule was they could have the portable devices in the car for traveling but once to the campsite they were left in the car  (Tell them before you leave, no surprises!).  More detail on traveling with kids later...   Camp Counseling at Sugar Creek Bible camp was the same.  The only electronics we allowed were flashlights.  (How else to play flashlight tag?). Instead, we played kickball and soccer, hiked up a great bluff to a spring or down to the creek to catch crawdads.  That's one of the great things about camping.  It doesn't take a 350$ entertainment center to create challenges to overcome and joys become simple again. And the entertainment comes from being with one another.  Yes, the bugs can make you crazy. Humidity can overwhelm, so you prepare as best you can. Take the sun lotion, the bug spray, water guns and buy lots of ice.  Its worth it because, nothing builds a child's self esteem as much as learning that you enjoy being with them. Oh it takes awhile to get past the whining and the complaining.  You have to try different things, hacky sack and flying kites and building things with rocks and telling stories and rolling in sleeping bag races.  You watch the kids and find what amuses them.  What tickles their fancy and yours.  Don't expect perfection from them and don't expect things to go perfectly for you. You'll probably leave later than you wanted and end up setting up in the dark.  Families have arguments about everything don't expect camping to be different. This is not about fixing your family. That's television hyperbole. Remember, its the things that go wrong at camp that make the best stories to tell.