Oh the things you can learn from being in nature

 When I close my eyes and dream of relaxation I can smell the fresh air, feel the breeze blowing across me & the sun shining on me, hear the water splashing up on the beach and no I am not talking about some exotic destination vacation I am talking about camping! I <3  camping not only for the relaxation aspect of it, or because I usually get to hang out with great friends, those are just added extras..... I love camping because it brings out the kid in all of us & teach my children many life lessons.

My kids & I went camping a couple weeks back for about a weeks time frame & it was astonishing to me to see how many life lessons the kids had learned from camping with out even knowing it.

Life lesson #1 = Always believe in yourself

With in the first half hour of being there my oldest son learned to completely ride his bike with no training wheels by himself! My husband even taught him how to do the skid marks. I was getting the camp site set up & my son rode up to me and stated "Mom, I can ride my bike completely by myself, I knew I could do it I just had to believe in myself!" I mean how does that not break your heart & make you stand back look & think about how great your life is when your child says something like that to you?

Life lesson #2 = Whatever you do, love what you do

We did many activities while camping some of which included catching frogs, having frog races, riding bikes, & going on hikes.

My Oldest so proud of the 25 frogs he caught

 Life lesson #3 = Use your imagination

On one of our walks we found the great hidden, cute, little hand made play fort. It was awesome! It is hidden back in one of the campsites and someone has spent a lot of time & talent on it creating the play fort. Everything was made strictly out of old tree logs & bailing twine - it really was a site to see and the kids had an absolute blast playing back there (as did I :) ).

view of the lake from our campsite 

The start of the hidden treasure fort

Life Lesson #4 = Sharing, Caring, Manners

This is what you first find when you enter the fort. A dug in fire pit surrounded with bricks, a whole seating area that surrounds the fire pit, a homemade pallet table and one of the coolest parts was the swing! My kids could not get enough of the swing and it was big enough to fit two people on it.

 

Life Lessons #5 = No matter what life throws at you, hold on tight & you can make it

To the left of the fire pit area there is another hidden entrance into the "bigger play fort." You go through that entrance and find a huge ladder to climb, with a swinging & climbing rope

Life lesson #6 = Always have balance in your life

There were also many tree logs laying around that we used a balance beams.

Life Lesson #7 = Always climb to new heights, Reach for the stars

And of course there were many great trees around for climbing in

Life lesson #8 = Life is not about what & how much you have, as long as you have family you have it all

We were all showing our muscles as were were wrestlers :)

He's a moose...of course