Vacation - Our Travel Day to Mackinaw City

We are home from vacation and it is time to share all of the fun we had!  We started talking about vacation with the boys about a week prior to leaving.  We count "sleeps" when we talk about time so we had about 6 sleeps before leaving on vacation.  Needless to say the boys were very excited about the thought of going away so I made a countdown chain (I totally forgot to take a photo) to help them have that visual.  Let me tell you, every morning the boys were very quick to remind me to take down a 'sleep' (remove a loop from the chain) and they would then count how many more sleeps we had left!

I spent Friday and Saturday working on my lists, laundry and packing.  Saturday dawned hot and steamy so I worked first thing on some packing.  Then, to get out of the heat, the boys and I ran errands, went out to lunch and turned in all of our change to use for vacation.  Once Darryl got home, we finished up a few things and officially started our vacation with dinner at "our" Chinese Resturant.  The boys love it because they can pick their own food AND get ice cream.  We ordered the boys some lemonaide - we usually only order them water - when Josh took a drink he said, "Thank you daddy for making money so we can have juice to drink" HA!

Sunday morning we actually slept in a little but the boys were still up at 7:30 - ready to go on vacation HA!  We had basically decided that we would get up, get ready, load up and go.  We ended up hitting the road at about 10:30 which was perfect.  The boys loved the travel bags and dug right into their activities.  Just like clock work, about an hour into our trip poor Nate got carsick.  I feel so bad for the little guy - he knows to grab his puke bucket like a true champ.  The only good thing is that it was right at an exit with a car pool lot to boot so we could clean it all up and hit the road again.  We made our first official stop about half way to Mackinaw City for lunch at McDonald's.  We were there for 90 minutes.  No lie.  The service was super slow, my kids are super slow eater's, and then came the bathroom trips.  The joys of potty training boys - one that is 100% trained and one that is when he wants to be means LONG trips to the potty.  Wow!

The boys were so excited when we were close enough to see the bridge and then to our hotel.  It was really cool because our hotel, The Clarian Beachfront Hotel, had a huge clock on the front of it so the boys had that constant landmark to look for each time we headed "home".

 Our room had a fabulous balcony - it was one of the things I prayed for on our drive North - I wanted a view of the water.  We had a view of the water that was just wonderful and my boys loved having that balcony where they could watch the birds and the boats.

Once we settled in, we drove down the main drag and headed to the Lighthouse park so the boys could see the water and the bridge.

To say that the boys loved the Mackinaw Bridge is an understatement.  They did not want to leave to go to dinner - they just wanted to stay and play.  Once we dragged the boys away . . .and changed them out of their wet clothes . .. we headed to dinner and then went back to the hotel where we then headed down to the beach.

The boys had so much fun in the sand and the water while Darryl and I enjoyed some lounging in the beach chairs in the sand.  It was a fabulous private sandy beach right behind our hotel; the perfect spot.  Needless to say, bedtimes were thrown out the window, it is vacation after all :-)

Day one of vacation to Mackinaw City was a huge success. 

Food Friday - Crunchy Asian Salad

Crunchy Asian Salad
adapted from a friend - Jacki Lewis

I love the Asian Coleslaw versions that are out there but I have never found one that I LOVE until now.  In May a friend and I made the food for a Ladies Tea at church and she made this salad.  It was the best I had ever tasted so I grabbed her recipe!  The secret?  Good Seasoning's Dressing mix.  The dressing for this salad is my new favorite go to dressing for everything. We had steak one night last week and had one steak left so I cute it up into thin strips, added it to lettuce with sunflower seeds and croutons and used this dressing - best salad ever :-)  

1 env.  (0.7 oz.) GOOD SEASONS Italian Dressing Mix

1/2 cup  sugar

2 Tbsp.  soy sauce

2 pkg.  (3 oz. each) ramen noodle soup mix

2 pkg.  (16 oz. each) coleslaw blend (cabbage slaw mix)

4 green onions, sliced

1/2 cup   Dry Roasted Sunflower Kernels

1/2 cup  Sliced Almonds, toasted

Make It

PREPARE dressing mix in small bowl as directed on envelope. Stir in sugar and soy sauce.
BREAK apart Noodles; place in large bowl. Discard Seasoning Packets or reserve for another use. Add coleslaw blend, onions, sunflower kernels and nuts to noodles; mix lightly.
ADD dressing; toss to coat.

 

Weekly Menu

I don't have any food prep photos this week since I didn't prep any food to eat this week HA!  I will say that as much work as food prep is - even just getting fruits and veggies ready to eat - we actually eat more of the stuff I buy because it is ready to eat.  Now, if only I could get my three year old to eat FRUIT Salad instead of his CRACKER salad.  Yes, that's right.  He comes up to me and asks for Salad.  Then says, "I want my cracker salad mom" which is just . .. a bowl of crackers.  HA!

Saturday - First day home which means grocery shopping!

Sunday - The last day of our vacation!  We will grill today - burgers sound good to me with some corn on the cob and fruit.

Monday - I have a roast to use up and have a recipe for a balsmic beef in the crock pot.  I'll add some potatoes and a veggie for an easy "first day back at work" dinner.

Tuesday - Ham and Cheese Quiche, Banana Bread, and fruit

Wednesday - Hot Dogs, Mac and Cheese and chips

Thursday - Today is 4th of July (WOW!)  I'm not sure yet.  (Since I'm writing this the week before we go on vacation).  If the weather cooperates, we like to go to the beach which means we'll have a picnic.  If not, we will probably grill some steaks and have potatoes and garlic bread.

You might notice this is a pretty easy menu this week.  That's the plan.  I wanted to plan ahead, keep it simple, and start out strong after vacation.  :-)

Music Heals

I posted recently about attending the funeral of a friend who passed away after a year long battle with cancer.  Her funeral was heartbreaking for those left behind even though we know with true abandon that she is now walking in heaven.  She picked two very powerful songs to be played at her funeral so I thought I would share those with you today.

Even If-- By Kutless - you might want a box of Kleenex handy if you know someone going through some struggles right now, just saying!


Blessed Assurance by Jadon Lavik.  This song IS Betsy; everything it says is who she was and what she believed.

Too Cute Not To Toot

This week, as I've searched for ideas, I've run into the same problem over and over.  I find a great idea on Pinterest, I then click on the photo to go to the link and it either doesn't link to anything or it links to the main blog not the individual post.  I wish folks would post right to the post so that we can learn how to do some of those great things!

I did find this idea from All Free Sewing for a "Taggie".  It's a great baby gift but I think even young kids would like them in the car because of having the various textures on the piece.

Ok, I found a couple cute ideas over at Decore Allure.  I actually saw the idea for the Bandana blanket first and fell in love with it but there are a lot of ideas included in this one post!

Also from Decor Allure is this very cute playmat idea.

Enjoy your week and happy crafting!

Summer Preschool - Prepping for our year

Last week I shared what our curriculum would be this coming year.  This week I worked on some prep work - my goal was to get the first 6 weeks worth of lessons printed and ready to go for Josh.  I did get lessons 1-5 printed and part of lesson 1 laminated but I ran out of lamination and decided to hold off buying more until after vacation.  In same cases I wouldn't "waste" lamination but, since I plan on reusing this material for Nate next year, it is important for the stuff to last.  (I don't plan to laminate the stuff for Nate's lessons since this will be the only year we use that stuff).  I am going to buy two Caryola wipe off boards that allow you to put a piece of paper under the surface so that worksheets can be used several times without needing to make multiple copies.  I feel good about how far I got this week.  The other big thing I did was actually count out our weeks and lay out our schedule for the year.  After doing it both ways - "year round" and with the full summer off, I decided that I like the 6 weeks on/1 week off idea.  That allows us to take all of December off and end the second of May.  We will then have the rest of May, all of June and two weeks in July off.  I need the breaks probably more than the kids do!

 My stack of school papers - I love those plastic snapping folders.  I get them at target and they are perfect for storing each lesson.  Makes it easy to grab what I need each week.

Here's our calendar!  The red dates are holidays; blue are vacation dates and yellow are school days. 


The other thing I worked on was our vacation binders.  If kids have something to do in the truck the parents don't go insane HA!  My boys love maps so one of the things I did was print of maps for all of our destinations both coming and going. I then laminated them and made sure they had some markers to follow our trip :-)  (I just searched online until I found a map I liked and printed it . . .)

  I also printed some coloring pages of some of the things we would do and see and included a big photo of the bridge so that they would know what to look for as we traveled.

 I included these ABC pages which actually are for a different activity but I told the boys that they could draw a picture on each page of something they see while on vacation that matches the letter. Then, I laminated the ABC cards to practice writing their letters.

 Confessions of Homeschooler

(can't find the source for this as the moment - I saved it a LONG time ago!!)

One thing I did not get a photo of is a set of Alphabet coloring pages from Mr. Printables.  These will probably show up during our year of school too ;-)

My other main focus this week, of course, was getting ready for vacation.  That included, packing, cleaning, and making sure that all details were taken care of before we left.  I like to leave my house nice and clean so that when we come home, the only thing we do is unpack . . Trust me, Saturday evening, there was a lot of vacuuming and last minute pick-up happening!!!

Dining Room Update

I thought I would share a few minor updates I made in the dining room.  My dining room is really my "photo room".  It is where most of the family photos hang but I was really getting tired of my old displays and wanted to do a little updating.

 This is my new favorite display.  I was at a friends house recently and she had hung up large canvas prints of her daughters and it made a huge statement.  I knew I wanted to do something similar but I did not want to spend much money since I plan on changing out the large individual photos at least once a year.  After doing some searching, I found that I could print 16x20 posters from Snapfish  from $14.99 each.  Even better, they often have specials where you can buy one/get one so I was able to get both for $14.99! 

 I hung family photos and baby photos together.  I'm not 100% happy with this arrangement yet.  I would like to maybe pull out some other older photos - like Wedding Photos of my parents and all of my brothers just to add to it.  Maybe a family photo of both Darryl and my families at about the same time frame.  I think that older photos really show family history.  I also need an updated photo of my In-laws to put on that wall too :-) I recently saw an idea on Pinterest that I love so I may follow that inspiration.

Finally, on another wall, I hung our wedding photo and then the two memory boards that house current family photos.  I will say that I need to update the frame for our wedding photo.  That will be on the list for one of these days when I end up at Kohl's - my favorite place to buy large frames since they are almost always on sale.

I love the changes. I rarely move furniture so when I "rearrange" I move artwork.  It really does freshen up the look of a room.  Now . . .to do touch up paint :-)

Some things I've Tried Recently

It's summer and that means  . .Flies.  Every year I have about 5 flies that think they need to live with me.  I don't care if I kill one, there are always 5 and it drives me nuts.  I had seen an idea on Pinterest using this simple cleaning supply:

 I decided it couldn't hurt to try and mixed up a spray bottle using half water and half Pine-Sol.  Now, I wipe down my counters and the dining room table using this mix and guess what?  It kinda works.  We  were eating dinner and there was a fly buzzing around yet it refused to land anywhere near the table.  I've also noticed that the flies are avoiding the kitchen.  Now, I guess I need to also clean every other room in the house with this cleaner too!

Sometimes I try new recipes that aren't really "recipes" but rather little things that go along with something else.  One of those was a Creamy Avacado Dressing from Krista's Kitchen. 

In the recipe, this dressing is meant for a salad but an idea on Pinterest was to use it on Taco's and that is why I made it.  It is pretty tasty - a little like a gourmet mayo (which sounds not so great with Taco's but it works!)  I've also used it to dip some fries in and also a cheesy breadstick!  I tend to use ranch dressing instead of ketchup and I think this is a great substitute for the Ranch.  Oh, I also used it in a Tuna Salad instead of Mayo and it was really good as well. 

Another recipe I tried recently comes from Stilletos to Legos and is the "famous" Zero Calorie Slushy".  I think it should really say "Zero Point Slushy as far as Weight Watchers points. 

I altered the recipe a little because I thought two bananas was a bit much .  For a "healthy" ice cold drink, this was pretty good.  I will say that by the time I had about 1/4 left, I was done.  It got almost bitter - which the second banana might have helped with, actually.  I did not add any sweetener to it but I might try that next time. 

Food Friday - Spinach Queso DIp

Spinach Queso Dip
adapted from Haystacks and Champagne

I had originally planned to make this for a Ladies Meeting but, looking back, I ended up just making cookies that night because it had been a long day :-/  So, I ended up making this to go with lunch on my husband's day off and it was so good.  The spinach adds nice color to the normal cheesy dip but really doesn't impact the flavor (unless you are my mom and hate spinach, then she is SURE she can taste it HA!).  I did this in a pot on the stove since it was a last minute addition to lunch but, personally, I think Velveeta melts better in a crock pot so if I was making this for company I would use the slow cooker for sure! 


HOT SPINACH SALSA QUESO DIP

• 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1 lb Velveeta cheese (2% fat--this is the reduced fat version)
• 8 ounces cream cheese (light)
• 1 jar salsa (I used 3/4 full jar of a 16 ounce jar)
• A handful of chopped cilantro (optional-but good)

Now there's 3 ways to make this:

1) Cut the Velveeta and cream cheese into cubes and place all ingredients in a microwaveable-safe dish. Heat until cheese has melted and stir to combine all ingredients.

2) If you prefer, you can place all the ingredients in an oven safe dish and bake until the dip is heated through--continuing to stir to mix all ingredients. I usually put the dip in at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes--keep an eye on it as it depends on how deep your dish is--it can take as little as 10 minutes or as much as 20-25 minutes to have all the cheese melted. When it's hot and bubbly, it's ready!

3) OR, you can place all ingredients in a crockpot and heat until cheese has melted (continuing to stir the mixture to combine ingredients). It should take somewhere around an hour to have the cheeses melt (but check as crockpots vary). This particular method is great if you can leave it on the low setting--then your dip will stay warm for a while. But I bet it won't last!

Serve warm with tortilla chips. Heaven! Should make a small crowd very happy before dinner is served (like 4-6 people). 

Weekly Menu - What we take on vacation

First up is Food Prep!! This is what I prepped for this week:

 It actually took me two days to do food prep because I didn't realize I was out of ziplock bags until I was home from the store.  On day one I prepped - Spinach for smoothies and salad; lettuce for salads, grapes, pineapple, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and lemons/limes (for water).  With the fruit I also prep small bowls to send with Darryl in his lunch.  I also made a batch of my new favorite Salad Dressing - an asian dressing that is to die for. 

 On Sunday, I finished up by prepping bags of smoothie stuff that go in the freezer until needed, pickle/ham roll-ups for snacks, mix for homemade Ice cream and finally, the large square container has Darryl's lunch stuff - cookies and poptarts ready to go into his lunch to making packing it a little easier at 3:30 AM :-)  One other item not in this photo is extra Pork Chops that I cooked on Sunday for dinner.  I planned extra so I could slice them up into strips to use on salad throughout the week.

Food prep takes a lot of work, I'm not going to lie.  On Saturday, between shopping and prepping, I spent about 4 1/2 hours working on "food".  We are eating a lot more fruits than we used to though so that is good.  The smoothie prep is new this week - I'm going to see how it works out and decide if it is worth the time to do that or just to mix them up each morning.
On to other things!!

I'm in the midst of cleaning, washing, packing, and printing (all of our stuff we need) for vacation.  I shared our extended menu last week so today I'll just let you know what we normally take with us as far as food.  (I know, thrilling, isn't it?)

We are staying in hotel for 5 nights and that get a little pricey as far as snacks and drinks.  The hotel offers free breakfast which is a HUGE plus because I don't have to pack simple things for breakfast.  With kids, I know we will be up in time to catch the breakfast too :-)

Anytime we go away, I always pack drinks.  Pop machines are so rediculously expensive that to not carry your own drinks is crazy, right?  We will be taking our cooler and I think the room has a fridge.  (I don't trust those little fridges though - things can freeze so fast in there!!).  So, I always take a carton of Pepsi and Diet Sprite.  Plus a Package of bottled water since it is easy to add Crystal light packs to those and have lemonade for both the adults and kids :-)   This year I'll be adding Juice Boxes to the packing list for the kids.  I love them because they are easy to throw into my little cooler that goes in the kid bag for when we go on day trips.  Chocolate Milk is a must ;-)  I'll pick up some of those little Chugs to keep in the cooler for bedtime for the boys.

What about snacks?  Some times I WAY over pack when we go away and I'm trying not to do that this time around.  I would like to limit it to basically one snack per person. I have found mine - it is this awesome chocolate drizzled carmal corn (YUM!).  For the kids, I will pack poptarts and Breakfast bars along with some crackers/cheese boxes that they love.  Finally, for Darryl - I'm not sure ;-)  He loves Fig Newtons so maybe those plus he also likes the cracker/cheese boxes too ;-)  The nice thing about vacation is that you pick up stuff along the way like Fudge, or special cheeses, or crunchy fun stuff.  This year I also plan to pack fruit - grapes, strawberries and apples and cheese sticks.  Three out of the four of us love fruit (Nate, not so much) and fruit is a great snack to take alone on day trips too!

That's it :-)  With breakfast at the Hotel, we only plan a light lunch/snack and then an early dinner.  Then, everyone can have a snack before bed if needed.

Kids and Camping!

What to do with kids while you are camping?  That is the question that I faced this year as we prep for some future camping trips.  Sure, I love to sit by the fire or sit in the shade and read my book . . .in between naps but my kids need a little more activity.

I came across a great site on Pinterest called Leading Them to the Rock and was thrilled with the ideas that she shared.

Here are my ideas:

Beach Fun - the boys love the beach so we have new beach toys, squirt guns, and sand castle building supplies.  Throw in some towels, beach chairs and a beach umbrella (for all day fun) and life is good.  This stuff all goes into one big bag so that it is ready to grab and go to the beach. 

Items I gleaned from the post above:
1. Wooden blocks - my boys love to build so throwing in some blocks to use in the sand/dirt is a great idea.  Add in some Matchbox cars and dinosaurs and life is good.

2.  Bubbles and more bubbles - who doesn't love bubbles? 

3. Clipboards, paper, crayons and pencils.  For drawing and for doing leaf tracing or other fun things.

4  Searches - lists to go on scavenger hunts to see what we can find for fun.  Also, picking up maps at the guard station  . .. the boys can write on them and just "use them up" since we can always get more!

5. Squirt guns and a bucket.  Especially on a hot day - we can all have fun with some water :-)

6. Buckets and bug collection kits - Last year my boys collected acrons and we had no where to put them so this year we will have buckets with lids, a place to put bugs and anything else they find.

This year we are not taking bikes.  My boys have just learned to pedal but I don't want to have to watch them at every moment on the road.  Hopefully next year they will be better on bikes and we can pick a campsite where they can ride a little easier. 

As the boys grow, our list of things will change . .. balls, gloves, frisbees, and more.  :-)

Do you have fun activities you do with your kids while camping? Feel free to share!

Too Cute Not to Toot!

I'm slowly getting some ideas concerning redoing the living room and one thing I want to do is get rid of my curtains.  I like the idea of Roman Shades so I wanted to share this tutorial from Shanty-2-Chic.

This next idea comes from Lookie What I did!  and is something that I already do but thought I would share anyway.  She shares a great way for kids to easily eat in the car :-)  She uses a caddy from Target, I just picked up some rectangle Ziplock containers and use those for the kids food.  They can easily hold it on their laps without losing everything.

So, to be honest, I'm not scouring the web for ideas right now because, simply, I have a lot of things I've already posted that I want to make :-)  In order to catch up a little, I need to not post so much!  So for now, this is short and sweet . . .and it just may be that way for a several weeks.  :-) 

Summer Preschool - Our Curriculum for the fall

Lets keep it real - we've played a lot this week :-)  Just played . We are still enjoying some really nice days - so much better than last summer - so I am not about to stop the play.  Plus, I'll be honest, I'm enjoying not planning and not overseeing planned activities.  We all play together some times and some times I'm able to get some extra things done around the house.  I'm sure as the summer heats up, I will need to help the kids accomplish some things so that they don't get on each others nerves but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Anyway . .. here is our plan for the fall.

The main curriculum that I will be using for Josh comes from Confessions of a Homeschooler and is her K-4 program

This curriculum really covers all of the bases in every basic subject that a 4 year old should know.  We are not technically starting Kindergarten with Josh this fall since his birthday doesn't hit until the end of October.  We made the decision to wait one more year plus this put Nate and Josh only a year apart in grades which will keep them together through the years in other activities.  Not to mention that homeschooled kids tend to graduate a year early (not always but often) so waiting a year won't hurt him.  One of the things I love about this curriculum is that 36 weeks of lesson plans are provided and within the plans are links to everything you need to print.  It is awesome that the work is already done!

The main curriculum that I will be using for Nate this year also comes from Confessions of a Homeschooler and is a great preschool program.

Last year, the boys did the same curriculum because Nate wasn't really in preschool.  He just tagged along for fun and some days, left the table early.  Because he did a lot of the work with us, though, I had to find him something new to use in "Preschool" by himself this year.  This curriculum is a great option because it is similar to what Josh is doing so when he compares his work to his brother's it won't seem so different.  (It is my plan to use the K4 curriculum with Nate next year).  This curriculum comes with 26 weeks of lessons, pre-planned, with links, ready to go!! 

I like to add a Bible Supplement to our day because it is so important for kids to be grounded in the Bible.  I did a lot of research and found this curriculum from Positive Action that I really impressed me.

Bible is one of those subjects that both boys can do together so I will be working with both Josh and Nate on this study. The interesting thing about this is that I "grew up" on Positive Action material.  I complete 6 years of Pro-Teens as a teenager in my church so it excites me to share this same curriculum with my kids. 

I also plan to start Handwriting with Josh using curriculum found at A Reason For.

Learning to Read goes hand and hand with learning to write so plugging this in even once a week will help him alot.  I like that they use scripture verses as writing practice.

This last item is a bonus item - it is PE curriculum from Family Time Fitness and is a great way to do PE when you don't have a clue.

I want my kids to be active and enjoy sports.  I looked at this last year but my kids weren't ready for it at that point so I waited but I am planning to pick it up this year to use with the kids.  We also like to put our kids into an activity . . .our focus right now is actually swimming.  They will be enrolled in swimming lessons by the end of July and we plan to continue with those until both boys can swim with confidence.  We did gymnastics this past spring and the boys enjoyed that but swimming skills can save their life. :-)  We are also tentatively thinking about putting Josh in soccer this fall - we'll see! (Nate is too young still!)

My next step is to start working on our schedule.  I'm thinking about doing a 6 week on/1 week off rotation which would open it up for us to have a longer break in December and finish up our year mid-May.  Josh's curriculum begins with a lot of review so starting in Mid-July wouldn't be a big issue and we would only do his K-4 curriculum for a little bit each day.  I plan on using time next week to lay out the plan, starting printing the first 6 weeks of lessons and also get the other stuff ordered so I'm ready to go :-)

Happy Father's Day!!

I just wanted to take time today to say 

Happy Father's Day! 

to my dad :-)  He's an awesome dad that would do anything for me

My kid's would like to say 

Happy Father's Day!

to Darryl - their dad!  

We've done a little shopping and I have a nice dinner planned ( he doesn't have to grill - what is it with making dad cook on Father's Day?).  

 

Camping - Food!

We really do enjoy camping (even backyard camping) and have come up with some favorite "recipes" to sue every time we camp.  I thought it would be fun to share my camping ideas and "lists" over the next few weeks. 

A little background - we are tent campers.  We bought a tent for our first anniversary and have used it ever since.  When we had Josh, and then Nate, we decided to rent Mini-Cabins while the boys were little in order to have a more "controlled" environment in case of rain or cooler temps.  It also made it nicer for the kids to nap and go to bed on time since the tent gets so warm during the day.  This year we are retuning to tent camping since the boys are older and they love the idea of a tent.  Ultimately we want a camper/pop-up trailer and have committed to save this year for one so that by next spring we can purchase one and, ultimately, camp more often and for longer stretches of time.  The camper will help with not needing to worry about the weather and we'll also be able to bring our dog since she'll be able to sleep in the camper (she is not a lover of storms, fire, lakes, loud noises, etc HA!)  I personally would love a small camper (with A/C and a bathroom) with one pull-out to open the space up (so I can leave everything packed!)  but financially, a pop-up may be in our future instead.

So our food ideas are pretty simple.  We've always been limited on space for packing (starting with a trailblazer, then an Alero, an impala and now back to a trailblazer) so we only took one large cooler one one small cooler.  This usually means one store run mid-way through the weekend to pick up a few more things but that's ok too. 

Some of our favorite camping foods are:



Breakfast
Eggs, Bacon and Danish
Pancakes, Sausage and fruit
Cereal and Donuts

Lunch
To be honest, before kids we always ate out for lunch.  Darryl and I liked to explore little towns on the lakeshore so we would stop on the way and pick a fun place to eat. With kids, we are changing our ways so here are few things that are on my radar for lunch this camping season.
Walking tacos or nachos
Sloppy Joes
Chicken Tacos

Dinner
Marinated Steak Kabobs (cooked over the campfire) with fried zucchini and baked potatoes (crock-pot)
Hot Dogs with chips and homemade salads

Snacks
S'more's (of course!)
Family favorite chips, crackers and cookies - I usually make homemade cookies but not always
Cheese Sticks
Popcorn (I would like to get a popcorn popper eventually so we can make popcorn at our campsite)


We do have Pie Irons but really haven't used them.  There is a post over at Mustard Seeds that shares links to lots of ideas for Pie Irons including this idea for breakfast.

Do you have favorite camping recipes?  Feel free to share!