Outdoor Kids: camping offers new experiences

Our camping trip at Timothy Lake was a great escape. Renee already mentioned a few highlights, but what struck me the most was how my kids ended up doing so many things they wouldn't typically do at home. For example, my daughter easily reached into a bucket and pulled out a crawdad. I don't know if she was trying to impress the teenagers who'd caught the little buggers, but she did it over and over again. Then she carried around her own bucket of crawdads like they were pets. Pulling them out and letting them stretch their claws before plopping them back in the bucket. My emotions ranged from Ew to Cool watching her do this.

All of the kids could be found climbing trees throughout the weekend. We don't have any climbing trees in our yard, so the opportunities to do this are rare. They were like little monkeys. Filthy little monkeys, but oh so happy.

My husband had bought our kids fishing poles for the trip, which was one of the highlights for them. After a couple of tries they were both threading salmon eggs onto their hooks, and my daughter was able to cast her line out easily on her own. No one caught anything, but that really wasn't the goal for this first time out. More fishing is in their future.

The five-year olds took turns gathering firewood and even tossed logs (supervised) onto the fire. There was much swimming in the lake (not by adults, however -- brrr). It was really great to see these urban kids so comfortable out in nature. And it made our job so much easier.