For the time being, ‘camping’ for our family entails driving 30 minutes to the beautiful Lyndon B. Johnson Grasslands, ‘hunting’ wild fried chicken from the drive-thru and making s’mores, then hightailing it home to our nice, comfortable beds and crib kennels.

Even so, it takes longer to pack and prepare for the outing than it does to actually have the outing. It’s okay, though. A fantastic time was had by all.

1. The boys enjoying their fried wild chicken which was hunted and prepared by Chicken Express.

2. The obligatory child posing in front of the copse of lovely, blooming spring trees in the middle of a pine forest. The smell was intoxicating and roused an impromptu round of “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree”.

3. Harleigh and Da Boyz deciding to sleep by the unlit fire on their ‘sleeping logs’. The sleeping logs had red ants which infiltrated everyone’s knickers and caused a great uproar.

4. Hiking. The forest was quiet and stately and gorgeous.

5. Hope gives new meaning to ‘backpacking’. She tirelessly carried her baby monkey the entire way.

6. I had my own backpacking baby monkey and it kept biting my shoulder blades and telling me where to walk.

7. Got the fire going. We attracted a nice, young college age gentlemen who tied his hiking boots with great concentration for around 5 minutes on the path in front of us until we invited him for s’mores.

8. Homemade torches, marshmallows and scary stories. Then there was the creepy who-whooooing of an owl and an indecipherable metallic tapping in the woods which induced quick and helpful packing from all the children.

(I totally propped my phone up using a petrified s’more so the self-timer could work it’s voodoo magic)

Mom and Dad packed up the campers and put on a movie in the van and then enjoyed the silence and the fire a little longer before calling it a night.