Vacation in Your Own Backyard

The start of school is right around the corner. There might not be time to plan a vacation, but you can celebrate back to school with a stay-cation! This was one of our favorite things to do when we lived in our last house. My kids would get out the tent and sleeping bags and have a camping trip in the backyard!

Many times we would roast marshmallows or hot dogs over the fire pit and the kids would stay up late gazing at the stars or reading by flashlight. I thought it would be fun to do this again to help “kick-off” the school year and when Coleman asked if I wanted to try out some of their camping gear I happily agreed!

I have to say that I LOVE Coleman gear. Their tents are super easy to set up and can stand up to the rigors of lots of kids. Also, they are sold at Target (my favorite store) and right about now all camping gear goes on clearance! When we first started camping I would go to Target every few days to see what I could find on clearance. Last year I scored a two burner propane stove for under $15!

What happens when you get your kids all excited about a stay-cation and then you have rain for the entire week? You move the campsite indoors! Now I realize this isn’t something everyone can do, but if you get creative I bet you can think of a fun way to have a camp out either in the back yard or the living room.

To begin, serve a camping type meal like hot dogs or hamburgers on the grill and get all the ingredients for s’mores! Cora loves s’mores almost as much as she loves her beans.

Anyway- back to our rainy day camp out. What we would have done, had it not rained for 3 days straight would be to set up the tent in the back yard, grill out dinner, and then bring on the s’mores! But since we had weather issues, my 14 year old helped me set up the tent in the living room. Can we say thank goodness for tall ceilings and 14 year old boys?!?!

I want to add a little something. We have camped away from home in the rain and it is kind of fun. The rain hitting the tent, the dark skies in the morning… but since my yard doubles as a swamp and I didn’t want to lay awake all night thinking we would get washed away, we moved the campsite indoors.

We ate dinner, set up the tent, and the kids were begging to “go to bed” by 6:30 pm! They couldn’t wait to set up their little sections of the tent. Sleeping bags, pillows, blankies, stuffed animals, lanterns, and enough books to open a library were brought into the tent.

Every time I make a small effort to do something like this I always think- why don’t we do this more often? It costs nothing, and the kids had as much fun as they do when we spend big bucks on an outing.

The kids stayed up waaaay too late reading, telling stories, giggling and having a wonderful time. In fact the tent in the living room was such a hit we kept it up for a while!

While camping out in the living room was not my planned stay-cation it was a fun one! I hope to do it again soon except maybe this time the weather will cooperate and we can set up outdoors.

One last thing, the quad lantern Coleman sent me is awesome! It looks like a lantern, but each section is removable to give you four separate lights! Perfect when you have lots of littles in the tent!

In case you want to get started with some camping gear, Coleman is running a giveaway to win your own backyard escape on their Facebook page. The prize is $5000 in cash and camping gear! I have to say camping is the most fun and cheap vacation and stay-cation for our family. It is relaxing and the kids play outside all day just being kids! There’s still time to make some final summer memories before school begins so consider a backyard or living room camp out, your kids will nominate you for mom of the year!

Happy camping!