Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Camp Morning



After a good night's sleep - I like to have the water hot when my campers wake up! Having tea and hot chocolate available feels like showing love to them!




I learned on our first camping trip, that my family likes hot breakfasts while we are camping - so our first morning was perfect for pancakes! We all love the crispy edges that happen in the cast iron skillet over the camp stove. I like to mix these up ahead of time and put in canning jars or a gallon ziploc so they just need to be cooked and served. Emily brought me the cute Enthusiasm is Contagious mug from summer camp - I love it!

Rabbit trail: enamelware is just so charming! I'm not as big a fan of the current trend in making mugs that look like speckled enamelware but are actually ceramic! Not the same!







After breakfast, our kids and I do the dishes together: one on wash, one on rinse and one on dry. Then I put everything away! When that is all tidied away, I'm ready for a nice slow morning!













This book Humble Roots is so, so good. I read it cover to cover last week and can't wait to read it again. So many good things to chew on and let settle.

After some reading and quiet time, a nature walk was a lovely idea!











Super fun gift from a sweet friend: enamel flower pot from Ikea! Love!


It is amazing how much living and enjoying can happen in one morning without the normal chores and distractions of to-do's and technology. Just being out in nature - so peaceful and really so restorative and so good for the soul!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks so great. I love that you bring that special homey feeling to camping. I'm also wondering, how does Scout really do with this kind of thing? Is he as charming as he looks in all your pictures? We had a beagle once, and he was quite a handful! Enjoying your pictures!

Monica Wilkinson said...

Scout is an unusually chill Beagle! We are still teaching him how to stay with us, so we did alternate between long leash/free roaming but he really did do great. He occasionally gets the "zoomies" where he just wants to run and I describe it this way: he likes to run because it's fun, not to run away. We feel especially blessed with how good he is! Yes, he is as charming as he seems!

Agnes said...

Monica,
you need to tell us how you do so you kids stay busy and you can have some free time to take pictures or read a book!
Your camping morning seems so nice, ours are just chaos and my kids seems bored.
yours look like a lot of fun and quiet and everybody seem to have a good time, glad you had a good time.

Deborah said...

What is the name of this campground? We love camping in NC, though it's a long way from Mississippi, and this place looks like it would be worth the drive.

Simply Handmade Farmhouse said...

What a beautiful place to camp! We so need to do that with our girls. You are giving your family the gift of slow ~ I can just see the contentment in their faces and the smiles of living life slow. What a blessing you are to all of us. Thank you for sharing your heart with us all.

*carrie* said...

Love the lineup of mugs and the side-by-side hammocks!

Monica Wilkinson said...

@Simply Farmhouse: thanks for your sweet encouraging words!

@Deborah: this campground is in a private neighborhood where David and I have property in hopes of building when he retires :) I'm sorry it isn't open to the public. But we have camped a couple of other places in Boone area including Julian Price National Park that we enjoyed!

@Agnes: this time, we tried to make all of our hikes/outings in the later morning or afternoon and that gave us the mornings to just relax. We went with some friends so there were other kids to play with. I'm not really sure how to answer - but this has been our habit to want to really be slow and peaceful when we are there. When we have breakfast together, we talked about what everyone wanted to do that day and made a plan, having that plan in mind seems to help our kids as long as they know swimming or something they want will be coming up later? I admit that our kids are good at finding their own fun, I'm sorry that your camping mornings have not been as peaceful. :)

Mrs. Chrissy T said...

Love...love my visits here

Deborah said...

It is a beautiful place. I can imagine y'all will enjoy living there in the years to come. We typically camp near Bryson City, NC at Deep Creek in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. We are actually headed out this weekend, and I am so looking forward to a week of rest and tubing down the creek. There isn't even a cell signal in the park, so we have no choice but to unplug and slow down! Thanks for sharing!

Monica Wilkinson said...

@Deborah - same here! Don't mind that unplugged feeling a bit! :)

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful place to go camping. (And to live, in the future!!)
Looks like you have had a wonderful relaxing vacation! Scout looks so cute and content.
So glad you had this time together again this year.
Love to ALL, Grandma/Nana