Camping in Bon Echo: Part 2 (or, Camping with Kids)

The other day I wrote a review of Bon Echo Provincial Park. In general we had a great experience, but there were some challenges. I complained a bit about the park management, but most of the challenges were related to the difficulties when camping with young children.

This was our first camping trip with two kids. We've gone with our oldest daughter around 18 months and then again at 3 years. This time we had both girls - one is 22 months, and the other will be 5 next week.

The walk-in site was tough with young kids. If you're planning a walk-in, or a canoe/portage trip, I would strongly recommend giving it a second thought. We had to carry all of our stuff - two tents, one kitchen tent, two coolers, one giant tarp, all of our bags, shoes, jackets, toys etc. over a 5 minutes rocky trail to get to our site. I'm all for "backcountry" or "real" camping, but I think I'll enjoy it a lot more when my kids are old enough to carry things themselves. Obviously you'll pack less if you're canoe camping, but it will still be a tough slog with little people who are learning to walk!

Another challenge is sleep - young kids who are used to a quiet/dark room will have challenges falling asleep and staying asleep, especially if you are unlucky enough to have loud neighbours (which we did). Expect to be tired, and perhaps consider bringing along ear plugs for your own comfort (we found the white noise app on our phone to work really well for my youngest, and we charged the phone in our car each morning!)

Here are some other tips that worked really well for us, and made the experience fun:

• tarp your site - try to cover as much ground as you can. If you experience torrential rains (which we did!), your children will still have some dry space to do crafts and read books
• If you're car camping, consider purchasing a kitchen tent. It gives you some great space to cook, do crafts and play games, and if you keep it zipped up, will ward of the bugs!
• Pack a huge tote full of markers, crayons, stickers, playdough etc. We brought this out every day, and the girls spent hours colouring and crafting.
• Also consider packing sand toys, Kidnoculars (or just regular binoculars will do!), bikes, and containers for collecting leaves, rocks and other things kids love to pick up
• Blowup mattresses are amazing - I know Thermarests are smaller and easier to pack, but blow-up mattresses make a huge difference for comfort.

My last piece of advice? Let go of control - yes, it will be messy. It will be dirty. You might be a bit tired (at least for the first couple of nights). But it's worth it. You'll have lovely campfires, see shooting stars, swim in a cool/clean lake, go for nature walks, and watch your children delight in the outdoors.

Our oldest started the trip complaining about the "stinky" toilets, being afraid of bugs, and getting upset over her feet being dirty. By the end of the week she was picking spiders off her legs and saying "oh, hello there Daddy long legs!" The transformation was amazing!

What are your tips for camping with young children?

Camping in Bon Echo: Part 1

My family loves to camp. Or maybe I should say my husband really loves to camp, and I sort of love it. I don't mind sleeping in a tent, and I'm happy outdoors as long as the bugs aren't too bad. But I have a terrible fear of bears, and feel uneasy in the wilderness. I know that I have a better chance dying in my automobile than dying at the jaws or paws of a bear, but there isn't much rational thinking that occurs when I'm imagining myself (or my girls) being eaten alive.

Despite my reservations, I believe that camping is a fantastic activity for kids. Not only are they learning new skills and an appreciation of nature, but they're doing what kids do best - getting dirty and exploring the world!

So each year we plan a camping trip with good friends of ours, who also have two daughters around the same age as our daughters. This year we chose Bon Echo Provincial Park, about a 2.5 hour drive from Ottawa.

We reserved site #165, which is one of five walk-in sites at the Sawmill Bay campground on Mazinaw Lake. Bon Echo also has back country camping, cabins and yurts. 

Positives:

• There's a lot to do with kids. We rented a canoe for 1 hour and went to check out the native pictographs on Mazinaw Rock. The park offered amazing kids programs every morning at 10am, and most evenings at their amphitheatre.
• The beaches are sandy and clean. The girls spent many hours wading, swimming and building sand castles.
• The walk-in sites are beautiful - rocky and treed, and right on the water. You could easily jump off the rocks at your site and go for a swim. The lake is the second-deepest in Southern Ontario.

Negatives:

• For a walk-in site, I expected to have neighbours who had done a lot of camping and respected general camping rules. Nuh-uh, didn't happen. We ended up with several yahoos camping on either side of us - one couple lighting their fire with charcoal and starter fluid, another dragging giant logs and brush to burn, and a group of campers with no respect for quiet after dark (to give them credit, they weren't drinking or anything - they were just obnoxiously loud people. In fact, the following group at that site were the ones drinking and carrying on, and even they shut up at 11pm. I could have kissed them!)
• Walk-in sites and young children don't really mix (but as another positive, I'm in really great shape after all that walking back and forth!)
• Lack of policing from park rangers: our friends were staying in the main Sawmill campground, and had a horrible experience with drunken teenagers (or maybe they were 20...whatever). And in the walk-in campsites, we didn't see a single ranger in seven days. I realize funding is scarce, but I think a walk-through each evening is warranted.  I could have made the park a ton of money by handing out tickets for all the infractions I spotted
• The park was BUSY. Although I appreciate the human bodies surrounding me (as protection from bears, of course!), my hubby and I could have done with a quieter experience. We camped Achray in 2012 and it was very peaceful.

Although my negatives seem to outweigh the positives, we still had a wonderful time. The girls had a blast with their little friends, and the giant tarp my husband rigged up over the campsite saved us from days of rain. We're already planning our trip next year, and need ideas. What are your favourite campgrounds for kids?

Oh, and no bears were spotted. That didn't stop me from having a 2am heart attack after I heard what I thought was a bear - it was just a really loud racoon :)

Are you ready for back to school?

Some of us have already gone through back to school and the rest are coming up to it quickly.  I'm on my fifth year of back to school and I thought I'd share a few thoughts.  Please add any other ideas and tips to the comments below!

Clothing

• What still fits?  We go through a fashion show and get all the kids to try on all their clothing and depending on the kid, clothing gets moved to their younger sibling, or it gets put into donation or consignment piles (the older the kids get, the smaller the consignment pile gets ;)  It's a great time to purge all the stuff that doesn't fit any more or that has been destroyed.
• When possible, I try to get my kids' clothing used.  There are lots of great ways to do that in Ottawa, including great consignment sales (the Hot Tots is September 6 and the MBFA sale is on September 13) and there are all kinds of Facebook groups where people sell clothing, toys, etc, not to mention sites like Used Ottawa.  Leave a comment telling us what your favourite place to get used clothing is!
• Another great option is to have a clothing swap with your friends.  Kids go through clothing so quickly as kids and they play so hard in them, I'm all for keeping it as affordable as possible!

Making memories

I'm not always a super organized mom but the one thing I've always done is take first day of school photos.  I love seeing how the kids change over the years!  Make a point to take a shot on the first day of school.  We take ours in the same spot every year outside our front door.  The bricks really show how much they've grown from year to year.  Unfortunately this means we can't move until they're all done school now ;)  If you're worried your skills aren't going to capture the moment as well as you'd like, there are lots of photographers now offering back to school sessions too :)

Being mentally prepared

A lot of the hardest part of back to school is being mentally prepared.  Just remember:

• Breathe.  :)
• Don't sweat the small stuff.   (For all the planning I tried to do with clothing my daughter wore one of the most ridiculous outfits ever on the 3rd day of school.  If it isn't inappropriate weather wise, I just go with the flow )

Extra stuff

I asked people to share their back to school tips with us on Facebook.  Come add yours (or put them in the comments here!)

Want to share your back to school photos with us?  Do that on this Facebook post!

Bit of Momsense shares so great tips on back to school shopping and lunch ideas.

Happy back to school everyone!!

What To Do If Full-Day Kindergarten Isn't Right For Your Child

This is a post from our sponsor Bells Corners Cooperative Nursery School. I've heard amazing things about their school, so check them out! September will mark the final year of Ontario’s roll out for full day junior and senior kindergarten, meaning kids as young as three will be heading off to school for at least 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Though this new programming may feel like a financial and logistical blessing for dual income families, a vast majority of parents are left feeling uncomfortable with their children’s ability or readiness to cope with institutional care for such long hours in their young life.

While the actual benefits of full day kindergarden are being publicly and feverishly debated, these parents are still left on the sidelines scrambling to find alternatives - alternatives that will not only meet (or better, exceed) the educational milestones of the mainstream kindergarten curriculum, but nurture their child’s innate curiosity, instil a love of learning and celebrate their unique little personalities.

Bells Corners Co-operative Nursery School (BCCNS) provides an exceptional alternative or supplement to full-day kindergarten. Based on a core belief that every child and family has a right to a quality early years education and experience, BCCNS provides a unique and caring program that fosters hands on “learning through play” experiences specifically focused on developing self confident, life-long learners.

The program is staffed by experienced, passionate and educated teachers. “We maintain a cap of 16 students per 2 teachers to ensure adequate one on one time with each of the students on a daily basis.” says Chelsea Coe, Program Director at BCCNS. “The small class sizes also allows us to conduct special projects, exercises and experiments that would otherwise not be possible with a larger group of students. This means we are not only able to fulfill the curriculum standards set by the Ontario Ministry of Education, but we go above and beyond those requirements.”

If you live in the area and are looking at alternative care, contact BCCNS today!

Visiting a Fire Station

One of the highlights for our girls this summer was visiting a fire station.  We visited Ottawa Fire Station 23 (Carling & Kirkwood) because my husband knows the Platoon Chief. But you can visit any station in the city and they will give you a tour as part of Ottawa's Fire Safety Program.  If you are interested in going for a tour call the fire education department of the city to set up a time (click here to find a fire station near you.

Our tour started in the Platoon Office where the staffing of all 29 fire stations is controlled. Next we were led through the station to the garage to meet our guide (a nice rookie who was great with kids) to see the fire trucks.  Station 23 has two main pumper trucks and one ladder truck.  Our guide explained how trucks are dispatched when a call come in and that some stations don't have enough staff to operate all the equipment at any particular time.

The girls got to sit in the truck and see and touch the equipment that firefighters use when they are fighting a fire.  The parents also got to pick up and carry bags of equipment to feel how heavy they are.  The firefighters need to carry these bags of equipment up countless flights of stairs.

The kids were a little nervous about all of the big equipment so our very nice rookie took us to the kitchen to see where they prepared and ate all their meals.  Firefighters are on duty for 24 hour shifts (yes, they sleep and eat at the station) and they have to be ready to go to a call anytime.  This is why you often see firetrucks at the grocery store.  One time they got a call when they were grocery shopping and had a full cart of groceries!

Station 23 is one of the older stations in Ottawa and even has a fire pole.  Newer stations are only one floor and no longer have fire poles.

The end of the tour led us back to the garage where the girls got a chance to help wash the fire truck.  They were happily scrubbing away when a call came in over the speakers.  We moved to the back of the garage and got to see all the fire fighters get suited up, get into the trucks and drive out onto Carling Ave with sirens blaring.