This past weekend, we went camping in Plymouth, MA with 6 unschooling families we had mostly never met. We know Jean! But we got to meet 4 other amazing families, including Kim, all with kids all about 10 and under. We went on Friday afternoon and left Sunday morning. Such a quick trip! It was NOT enough time for the kids. They did NOT want to leave. Hopefully next year we can stay for the full time. Milo wanted to live there and Skylar was enjoying his friends so much! Lots of unschoolers live in parts of the country where there aren’t any, or very few, other unschoolers, so when these kids get together they really live it up!
Friday night we had some big thunderstorms, all night long. Milo was very scared and wanted nothing to do with sleeping in the tent. In the rain, TJ and I moved everything from the back of the Suburban to the front seats and put the kids full sized air mattress in the back. That’s where Milo, Phoenix and I slept. I slept for about 2 hours that night. I’m not sure why I was feeling so anxious, but I was. It is very unlike me to lay awake all night. It left me mostly in a nice fog for Saturday. Meeting new people soooo tired has it’s downside. I can’t remember about half of the names of the people I met! I have a hard time meeting new people anyway, so it definitely made it a little more difficult for me.
Campfires and swimming and sand and marshmallows and campfires and games and laughing and playing and campfires! The kids had a blast! It is a wonderful sound to hear children playing and enjoying themselves. It is wonderful to watch parents so respectful and mindful. These were truly happy and busy children. They loved almost every moment they were all there. (I think the storm has a few of them scared… so not a bright spot in the trip) Milo and Phoenix and I slept in the Suburban the second night as well. Milo didn’t like the tent and for some weird reason everytime I brought Phoenix into it he would burst into tears. I was ok with that since I’m not much of a tent kind of gal either.
I also learned that I am an excellent and efficient “campsite taker downer”. Tj took all three boys to the lake and I tore down and packed up the campsite in just over an hour. I’ll admit, that the diet coke and the Emergen-C kicked my ass into high gear. (We didn’t want to pay for the extra day) Hopefully I didn’t scare Jean away with my “efficiency”! I had actually really needed that hour to obsessively clean. I enjoy cleaning, and I do get obsessive about it! Not in a bad way… just in a I clean a lot way.
