Camping at OOB

Camping is such a wonderful experience for our family. We had a truly amazing time camping from Thursday through Monday at our favorite place in Old Orchard Beach. We were there last year over labor day weekend as well and apparently many of the families return to this same campground annually for this send off to summer weekend. So the kids saw friends they had made the year before and there were calls of "Hey Robbie want to play some ball" and "Hi KC!" Reminded me of that Alan Alda movie "Same Time next year" a bit! We had the same campsites and the weather cooperated as well. That had looked a bit dicey earlier on, but the goddess smiled on us this year and we never had to break out the rain gear.

We pack a lot of "adventures" as KC puts it, into our camping times. We visited Nana, went to the Maine Wildlife Refuge in Gray which is tremendous and a great deal of fun. We went to LL Bean in Freeport, the Carters outlet to get Lissa winter outer wear and the Wolfs Neck Wildlife Sanctuary to do hiking. We picnicked there as well at a lovely site that bordered a field where the kids could run around after eating and burn off some steam. Then we hiked our favorite trail which allows spectacular views of the ocean as well as lovely forested spots. This was Lissa's first year in the hiking back pack and she loved it. KC charged along under his own power. What a difference a year makes. I remember last year that he had to rest part way through the hike because he was so tired and I even carried him a bit of the way.

We went to the beach, and to our favorite candy stores of course. And there were lots of fun things that might not seem really momentous to other folks. Hours of play at the campground playground, evening walks through the campsite while the boys played pseudo frisbee with circlets of glow sticks. Campfires and burned marshmallows. Making patterns on the ground with our glowsticks on the last night of camping. Cuddling with the kids in the camper and singing them to sleep. Lissa and KC's faces as they woke in the morning and peeked out the camper windows at the dawning day. Truly, wondrous memories to carry forward into the busy fall and the darker harder days to come as the wheel of the year turns onward.