Camp Backyard 2020

How's your summer going?

Did you send your kids to camp? Are you working? Are you working in the home while your children are home? Or are you working out of the home and had to find care for your children? Anyway we look at it, life this summer isn't easy. If your kids are going to camp, they are wearing masks and are socially distanced and things are just different and if you are working from home with your children at home with you, then I hope you have enough coffee or tea or whatever you prefer to keep you going strong all day.

This summer we chose to keep our kids home. I'm considered high risk and because of that we are choosing to still take all precautions. I am not working right now and my husband isn't either, so we are lucky that we have the ability to have both parents with our kids all day. But that's ALL day. All day is "mommy watch this" about 100 billion times and I really have no excuses not to watch....I'm not doing anything else....lol. Except for when our 2 year old is running rampant or trying to jump off the couch or screaming because he wants something he can't have. And I am still living with a ton of ailments lingering from my cancer treatments and surgeries though so it does become difficult to attend to my kids all day, but we do what we have to do as a team and like always, we feel that our children shouldn't miss a beat because they can't leave our home to socialize or because mommy can't move around yet like I want to. So by the middle of May, we started getting our backyard ready for not only summer, but for summer camp! These kids can't leave our house, but now, why would they ever want to? LOL.

I LOVE summer camp. As a child, I went to day camps and sleep away camps and as I got older I started working at some local day camps. I started off as a jr counselor and worked my way through almost every possible position there is at a summer camp. Counselor, swim instructor, lifeguard, division leader, camp supervisor, and assistant director. Matthew, our 6 year old, was supposed to have his first day camp experience this summer, but the camp decided to remain closed and we decided that we weren't going to send him anyways. So with all of my experience and my love for summer camps, Camp Backyard was underway! We purchased an inflatable waterslide for Matthew's birthday, we added a new sandbox (which I call my beach), built our own firepit and although we said we weren't going to do it, we purchased an intex pool. It's not the biggest, but it definitely serves its purpose - especially on heatwave days like today. This intex pool was THE BEST purchase this summer. Matthew would stay in it all day if he could, and well, why not do just that? I have to admit that floating around on a tube myself is pretty relaxing, as well as the perks of my child always having something that he can do. Oh, you can't think of something to do? Go jump in the pool. Oh, you're too hot out here? Ok, go jump in the pool. What? You are bored again? Here's the skimmer!! We get to practice going underwater, practice our strokes, although it takes only two freestyle strokes to get across the pool, we play games together and we can float!! After dinner floats are pretty fun too. We even managed to get Ryan in a few times too!

The new sandbox for the kids — My Beach!!

Matthew's 6th birthday present — Someone Loves His New Waterslide!!!

We've gotten pretty creative, I must say, and not only are the kids getting something out of this, but Jason and I are too! Each week is a themed week with lots of fun activities planned. My kids thrive on structure so we have a daily schedule that we follow and our camp activities are listed so we know what's coming. Everything is planned out. Of course we alter as needed, but it helps to know what we have going on each day and it makes the days go by pretty fast too. Last week was Sports Week so each day we did sports activities for both Matthew and Ryan. We covered baseball, basketball, football, and soccer and had so much fun! For anyone interested, I'll post the games we played and pics of our fun times from Sports Week are below as well!