Over on social media, I do Tuesday Tip’s where I share helpful tips about baking, living with food allergies, and my favorite kitchen items. This week, my Tuesday Tip was to have fun. I know that doesn’t sound all that helpful. For those of us that live with or have family members with food allergies, our lives are consumed by food and keeping us or our loved ones safe. We eat 3-6 times a day so by nature, we are consumed by food allergies. What else do you do 3-6 times a day that could make you really sick or even worse, land you in the ER fighting for your life? Probably nothing. It’s no wonder that the stress level of people with food allergies and their families are so high. That’s why my tip is to have fun. Since our lives are consumed with food, it’s safety, and our loved one/s we can become isolated and all consumed. Having fun and doing things other than thinking about, planning, and preparing food are of utmost importance for us.

My family lives in the burbs and enjoys the burbs, but our hearts are in the woods and traveling internationally. My family comes alive when we are out. The weather has finally turned for the better here so camping season has officially started for us. We headed east of where we live into the Cascade Mountains to enjoy a weekend camping “off grid”. There were no hook ups, water, or bathrooms. Thankfully we own a little tent trailer that holds several gallons of water and has a battery for minimal electricity, only when necessary. The trailer isn’t fancy, but it’s just right for our family. It gets us up off the ground and gives me an indoor place to cook when it’s hot or raining. A win both ways! I will write a post tomorrow all about how we eat with multiple food allergies and intolerances while we camp so be sure to come back.

Today’s post though is all about FUN. I have added a few affiliate links in case you want to check out these items. This is how we have had fun while we are camping. Hopefully some of these ideas will be new for you or good reminders. We have three girls and no boys, but that doesn’t stop us from having a great time in the woods. If we let our girls, they would wear dresses while hiking and rock climbing. 🙂 A year and a half ago, my husband had the idea to get a bow and arrow along with a sturdy target. We took it camping then and our girls just loved it. The bow we got for them was just right for our, then, 9 year old daughter. It was a bit challenging for our, then, 6 year old daughter. Now they are 10 and 7 and can both use the bow and arrow really well. Our 7 year old is quite the sharp shooter! Having the bow and arrow is a great way for all of us to have fun together, cheering each other on, and working together. I never would have thought of this, but I’m glad my husband did. This set always goes with us when we off grid camp. We also use it in our backyard.

We love to hike and explore the woods. There is an awesome little trail that is in our camp spot that leads to a large rock face. We scramble up the rocks to the bottom of the rock face together. I just love watching my girls scramble, they are awesome at it. My youngest takes it as a huge challenge and does a great job. This trip she learned how to follow kairns. 🙂 That is a very important skill to have here in the northwest since we hike so much and trails can be hard to find sometimes. My husband was sad that he didn’t bring his rock climbing gear. Next time we will have to bring it. We have taken our girls to a rock climbing indoor gym here and they love it. It would be fun to see them climb outdoors as well. As for me, I just belay everyone because I’m afraid of heights. On our way down the trail we found some unwanted hitchhikers, TICKS. YUCK! I wasn’t expecting ticks, but thankful I knew what they were. We found 4 on our trip enjoying their new home in our hair. :/ As far as we know, we left them all there.

This hammock lives in our backyard all summer and is a hit with our girls and all of the neighbor kids. It is typically full of kids with lots of laughter. Bringing it camping is great fun as well. There are always a large amount of trees where we camp to put it up.

My girls think I’m a little silly, ok maybe a lot silly. One night, we had the girls do a scavenger hunt in the woods. They had to find all of the items or they couldn’t have s’mores. LOL! Thankfully they are good sports and did the whole list and enjoyed it. Yes, I know, I’m terrible that I make my girls find poop. I did tell them it had to be dry. 🙂 It’s all fun and educational. The s’mores were worth it!

There was a neat river close by so we found a safe area for my girls to wade in rain boots, skip rocks, and play with water skeeters.

Now, I know we went camping, but I do think that a craft bin is a MUST! There will always be times when kids need time to chill. I have found the craft bin is great when I am cooking or the girls are simply done playing outside, which I get. Several hours in a day, my girls were in our craft bin and had the best time together. These are items that are different from the ones we have at home, so that makes it fun too. My bin is about 32 inches long, 25 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. That’s not exact, but a good guess. It is large, but it is so worth it to us. This bin stays in our trailer.

Craft Bin items
1. Playdough- make sure you have an allergy friendly one that is safe for your family. I make traditional playdough with regular flour because we only react to ingested gluten. I know that isn’t safe for very many of you so I won’t give you my recipe.

2. Coloring books of all kinds- I have coloring books that fit all the ages of my girls so they can all find something they enjoy

3. Crayons- I love these Melissa and Doug ones because they don’t break!

4. Crayola Markers– Crayons just aren’t good for all purposes so pens are a must too

5. Crayola Magic Markers and Paper– if you have a little one these are great! No mess or coloring on anything you don’t want them to. My older girls still really like these as well.

6. Playing cards- my girls love to play card games

7. Old Maid– because everyone loves Old Maid! 🙂 We can’t control our laughter, ever!

8. Melissa and Doug reusable sticker books– my girls spent so much time doing these this weekend

9. Plain paper for coloring

10. Bubbles– everyone always loves bubbles!

11. Water balloons– if it is hot when you go, these are a must, so quick and easy

12. Slip and slide– we only take one of these when we are in a camp ground, not off grid camping. None the less, they are super fun!

13. Water guns– Who doesn’t love a good water gun fight?!

We have realized that going camping doesn’t mean that you just have to sit around and enjoy the woods. Trust me though, we LOVE the woods. It’s ok to bring other things for the kids to do and it will make your life much better too. The things that we remember and enjoy the most are things that we get to do together. When we are home, we are distracted with life and don’t get as much time to spend face to face with our kids as we would like. That’s what camping does for us, it’s a lot of face to face fun together. What are some fun things that you like to do when camping?