For the last several years, I have been wanting to camp.
Even before I moved back to Canada I wanted to spend time hiking and camping. I feel at home in nature.
I lived in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains . . . I should have been living in the woods.

After making a post on Facebook about my youngest child wanting a tent, my cousin offered to give us a couple of tents. We took her up on the offer and we ended up with a six person tent and a giant four room tent. Score!

I may lose come “Canadian” points here, but I loathe winter.
It’s fun for a little bit. A day or two of sledding or snowshoeing… but after four or five months of the gruelling cold — I am over it. It makes me wonder how I enjoyed it as a child and wanted to spend every waking moment outside.
I now believe that this is why summer is so valued here and why everyone essentially lives outside during the summer. We all secretly hate winter.

I am fortunate to live to close to Gatineau Park.
Gatineau Park is a 361 square km conservation park that is located only a few minutes from downtown Ottawa-Gatineau.

As soon as they opened up the online reservations for camping in Gatineau Park, I jumped at getting us a reservation. I wanted it to be early enough in the summer that if they kids enjoyed it. we could return.

Reservations made, tents on hand . . . then it hit me.
I have never been camping on my own, as an adult. And I am taking kids?
What do I need?
What will they eat?
Will they be scared?
How cold will it get?
What did I get myself into?
How will we fit everything into our trunk?
Can I even set up the tent?!
How bored will the kids be?

I have two weeks to plan and get everything together.
I want to try and make this as minimal waste as possible and I also don’t want to buy all kinds of things to take that may only be used once.
I really think the thing that worries me the most is running out of food, or Teghan deciding that she wants a very specific food item that she hasn’t even mentioned in months while we are out in the woods.

I am fairly confident that I can pull it all together.
I just didn’t think about all of these decisions and the planning involved before I made the reservation.