Channeling my inner Man of Steel (day 35)

This past weekend we went camping in Ashford, CT with our family on Eddie's side. Yes, it was cold. Very cold at times. But it was also a beautiful weekend and we had a blast. Camping is one of our very favorite things to do, but unfortunately we don't get to do it often enough. Maybe next summer we'll make it out more often!

The campground, Brialee, has two Halloween weekends because those are so popular. We were there for the first of the two weekends and I would definitely go again.

While our taste tends to lean towards wooded campgrounds with hiking and mountain biking trails, this place is geared more towards families and children, so they have a really large playground, a pool, an activity center and an extensive schedule of activities. We were never bored.

In addition to the expected camping activities (grilling every meal, roaring camp fires, and walks through the dark to the bathrooms), we carved pumpkins, scavenger hunted, competed for best costume, decorated our site and trick-or-treated. Eddie and our niece coordinated their costumes this year as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. They won first place in both the team costume category and in her 8-10 year old category! I competed with the adults as Clark Kent, but my brother-in-law took the win with his Killer Clown costume (which he also terrorized the kids -and some adults- with).

It was so crazy getting ourselves together to go camping. We were packing our bags at 11:30 on Thursday night and threw it all in the car before going to work Friday morning at 6:45 am. It was dark when we arrived at the campground and changed into our outdoorsy sneakers. I didn't realize until the next morning, when I left the camper to brush my teeth, that I'd packed 2 different shoes. Ha! Good thing I can laugh at myself.... :)

No matter how crazy it was for us to make this trip happen, we're already looking forward to next year and brainstorming more coordinated costumes....Road Runner and Wiley Coyote? Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd? Fred and Wilma Flintstone? Bacon and Eggs? The possibilities are endless!!!

I didn't worry too much about food for the weekend, but we did pack a bunch of fruit, other simple real food snacks, and grabbed some Honey Whole Wheat and Pumpkin Nut Spice Loaves from Great Harvest on our way out of town (these were a big hit!). I started the morning with blueberries, almond butter & almond milk both days. We cut up fresh pineapple and mango to accompany the pancake & bacon breakfast Saturday. Later we grilled the fruit with chicken for dinner (it was amazing). Put out grapes, apples & oranges for snacks....But I also enjoyed some of the foods everyone else ate and some of the candy too. Today I've got a migraine, so I clearly can't handle some of the things I ate, but it was delicious and I'm getting back on track now so it's all good.