Author: travelingterrells

It’s that time of year again! Witches, Goblins, Pirates…..Ariel!

As you can see, the kids are really getting into it now. We talk costumes months ahead of time. They just can’t seem to settle on one and as a result each of our children ended up with two or three costumes  this year. OK, I’ll admit I really love Halloween as well. We try to rationalize our Halloween spending in that they have two Halloween’s, one at the campground and one in our home neighborhood. What’s more is that they’re invited to multiple parties, not to mention the various events they attend at school. How many times can you wear the same ensemble?  Bottom Line- Mom and Dad love Halloween too. Upside: more dress-up clothes for the off season. They really love playing dress up and role playing around the house. Really great rainy day stuff!

Check out my scary witch! Sarah really knows how to play the part.

Now for Ariel. I’m glad we bought the wig for this costume. It may be stealing the show a bit though. Regardless, Ava seems to be quite happy with it, when it stays on that is.

And then there’s my little swashbuckler.

The kids are getting bigger. We’re leading the parade here. Their little legs working overtime. This was before they even had candy. The trick-or-treating occurs right after the parade and costume contest.

Well, that’s it. We’re all caught up. Starting the blog this past January, we’ve used the winter months to catch up on our “archives.” Who knows what we’ll be blogging on next winter. The rest of this website will be a lot closer to real time. Even if we can’t upload live we’ll be capturing events on still and video to post when we get back. This also means there is going to be a lot more footage which means a lot more editing. I’m not sure how this is going to work out but I’m hopeful to be able to engage and entertain. Stay tuned for the adventure and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday to our Sweet Sarah!  You’re a beautiful little girl and have the most wonderful personality. You always make Mommy and Daddy laugh with your creative imagination and fantastic stories. These past five years have been the best of our lives now that you’re here. We love you so much!

2015 might be the year we discovered Lake Taghkanic park, http://nysparks.com/parks/38/details.aspx . What a wonderful park, and only 10 minutes from the campground. The biggest attraction of this park for us would have to be the the swimming beach at the west end. The kids swim for hours in the cold but clear water here. There are schools of fish that swim through the bathing area and the kids try to catch them with nets. The beach is very safe, lifeguards everywhere. They specifically walk through the water at times to make sure every child is near a parent.

We pack chairs, beach toys and all the snacks and drinks we might need for the day but there’s also a concession at the west end if you forget anything. They even serve beer!

The park is bring in/take out meaning there aren’t any trash cans. You must take out what you bring in. They also don’t allow alcoholic beverages to be brought in but you can buy them as I mentioned above. The park is very clean and kid friendly and would recommend it to anyone. We also like the playground at the west end and usually play there at the end of the day when we’re sufficiently waterlogged.

As you can see the park also has many trails as well as boat rentals and camping available. As the kids get older, I’d like to check out more of the park particularly the hiking.

Speaking of hiking, Linda and I also took the girls to Bash Bish Falls, the tallest waterfall in Massachusetts. Yes, I hadn’t realized MA was only a 40 minute drive from our campground.

I had read a review on Ellas Trails.com about the different trails available and chose to take the longer, flatter one which was claimed to be stroller friendly (more on that in a bit) which started in NY and led into MA. I thought it might be cool to hike from NY into an entire new state with our toddlers. There is a much steeper but shorter hike leading to the falls with parking in MA.

The hike is quite beautiful and you follow a creek up to the falls but can be challenging with the stroller. We have a rugged stroller with big air filled tires and I found myself many times having to pull it up rock ledges backwards as the wheels in the front that steer seemed to get easily locked up when attempting to push the stroller over the rocks. Many times this left the stroller being tugged up the trail at a very narrow angle to the ground with a steep drop off just feet away. Linda was mostly unable to help as she was tending to the very lives of our girls. Stroller friendly: I’d have to say if it was, it’s on the very limits of being so.

Above is one of the easier parts of the trail but you can see the drop off. At some times the trail is fifty to sixty feet above the creek so you want to mind your little ones to ensure they don’t get to close to the trail edge. Nonetheless I would recommend this to families as it is beautiful. The water fall is nice but I believe the best part of the day was the journey to the falls. Pack sandwiches and water and take your time. On the way back we stopped for lunch and waded in the creek. There were “no swimming” signs and some brave souls were actually jumping off rocks into the water about but the water was too cold for me to even contemplate going in past my knees.

I definitely want to get back here this summer and capture the hike on video. I’m sure we’ll visit Lake Taghkanic State park quite a few times as well.

Stay tuned for Fall activities and BNW Halloween! Thanks for stopping by.

This past summer we couldn’t wait for the pool to open up. This was the summer of swimming for Sarah. What a fish! She now jumps in and swims underwater fearlessly. Really gotta keep an eye on her though as she only recently turned four years old at the time. See her below:

Did It! Now, we’ve been teaching her for the last couple of summers and she even took some group classes. Through these experiences she’s gained the confidence one usually gets through practice and successfully achieving important milestones. Now compare her to her lunatic brother who just recklessly jumps in not having a clue as to what he’s doing or the consequences. I attribute some of it to his youth but most of it is  probably due to his personality. He is Wreck-it-Ryan afterall!

Ava’s been making progress too. She’s happy to be with almost anyone in the pool now although she still prefers you to hold on to her. She jumps when there’s someone there to catch her and swims when there’s someone immediately nearby to receive her.  I’m blessed in that I truly have three different flavors when it comes to my children but unlike ice cream, I’ll never be able to pick my favorite.

Lake swimming next! Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks for checking out our 2014 season. We’d like to recap with this short video. Please stay tuned for our 2015 season. Tomorrow is March 1st. and Camping Season is only a short month away so this next month will be dedicated to our 2015 archives. After that, we’re going to be adding current adventures from this upcoming season. I’m very excited about this but I’m sure it will have it’s challenges. Enjoy!

 

Beautiful Fall pic, now for the scary ones:

 

Sarah won best costume this year for “Zombie Elsa.” I don’t know how she knows about zombies. She often talks about The Walking Dead but we’ve never allowed her to watch.

Below you can see “Elsa” rising from the dead. Watch out Arendelle!

Z

This year Sarah spent more time being the “haunter” instead of  “haunted” choosing to hide and scare people riding on the Haunted Hayride rather than ride it herself. We did take one ride on it before turning over to the dark side. Halloween is my favorite holiday and I think it very well might be hers as well.

Sarah made this ghoulish baby scarecrow as part of a BNW activity. That is Ryan’s onesy and the skull is from a party light set a woman gave us the year before. It’s stuffed with hay and we still have it today!

And a little trick-or-treating to grab some loot. Notice Ava with the apple. Many times they choose fruit over candy. Hope it stays like that.

Once again, thanks to my father-in-law, Mario who took most of these pictures of the 2014  season. Thanks for stopping by!

 

The hot months are here and even the littlest ones need cooling off:

Golf Carts are very popular for seasonal campers at BNW. They’re useful for those, that have more remote sites or older people who can’t walk for longer distances. Sarah has been asking for one but I just can’t seem to put down those sort of roots, besides our site is near everything (although sometimes it feels as if we’re right in the middle of town) and we could use the exercise. Then I learned Sarah wanted to drive one, at three years old she’ll have to settle for a ride from our camping neighbor Ron.

Basketball in the Rain

The kids play all day up here and if there’s one sure thing it’s how tired they are at the end of the day. That, and all the fresh air just knocks them out.

The thing is, by the time they pass out, Mom and Dad are usually not far behind. I’ve been guilty of nodding off by the campfire a few times.  Halloween’s up next, thanks for stopping by!

Well we did it! Sarah and I anyways. We hitched up the trailer and crossed the Hudson River to go camping in Jellystone Park Campground, Birchwood Acres,  https://www.sunrvresorts.com/Community/JBA , for two nights. It was part of a Daddy/Daughter (or Son) camping trip with my work friends. We had a great time and got a very good site. Jellystone felt a lot more wooded than BNW and it had so many activities for the kids. They have fire truck rides, hayrides and activities involving the characters pretty much every hour.

Sarah was the youngest one there of the work kids but had no problems keeping up with them, swimming in the splash park  and playing in all the different playgrounds. I didn’t take my other two younger kids as I thought taking care of Sarah and the trailer was more than enough for me to handle on my own.

The first evening there was a terrific thunderstorm and the sky lit up! It sounded like the storm was stuck directly over us for hours and the kids seemed to enjoy the chaos as the dads struggled to batten everything down. No grilling tonight as we ordered about ten pizza pies for everyone. Unfortunately a large tree came down just outside the campground and left us without power for the next 30 or so hours. No worries as it was restored just before we checked out. Haha. We did manage to have a lot of fun in spite of everything.

Sun RV Resorts has done even more work to their pool area since the trip and you can check out their link above. Seems like they added a new pool area and water slides.

Funny story though: Upon packing up the trailer I noticed my wedding ring was missing. I retraced my steps, checked the splash park, had the lifeguards comb the pool,etc. I tore apart the trailer and checked the whole site all while looking after a three year old. I finally had to give up and hope for the best. I had to get back to BNW and then get Sarah back home as I had work the next day. Upon leaving I notified the staff at the front desk and left my information. As I drove away my stomach was in knots. I felt as if I had left part of my soul at that campground. My only hope was for the ring to show up in the pool filter or something.

When I got back to BNW, upon hooking back up, I slipped my hand into my work glove (the one I use to handle the sewer hose) and immediately felt something. It was the ring! I had taken the glove off at Jellystone and the ring had gotten stuck and stayed inside the glove. I had to call everyone back, including my wife and tell them of the news. I was too happy to be embarrassed.

Another year at BNW! This was Ryan’s first!

First frog of the season! Sarah is definitely not squeamish.She’s always been my kid that’s not afraid to pick up a worm or a beetle. This past summer she nearly gave the babysitter a heart attack when she came out of the woods behind our house holding a ten inch garter snake. What’s more is she was fighting Ryan (then almost two) over holding it. Nah.. just toddlers fighting over a live snake. What’s the big deal? It’s the woods, right?

Anyway, she always finds these frogs and if she doesn’t literally love them to death we end up bringing them home. I think this one died but the next one (Squishy #2) we brought home and our neighbor Joe was nice enough to donate an old fish tank to the cause. We keep the “terrarium” on our patio next to the garbage can to ensure that our amphibious guests have a steady supply of flies. They usually make it through ’til fall.

 

Ava looking pretty as a picture! She’s not so much for the creepy crawlies but does have a heart that is 1.5 times too large (Grinch reference).

Now that they can understand what camping is about they can’t wait to get up there to do it. When you go over these photos you really do realize how fast they grow up. All of a sudden it seems that Ava is now walking. Sarah has matured so much and has so many questions and there’s a new little one (Ryan) crawling in the grass.

That’s why we’re doing this. Children grow up so quickly and there’s such a small window of time where you can do this and make an impression on them. I want my children to be inquisitive and adventurous. I want them to love the outdoors and have an interest in nature. Before you know it, they’ll have part time jobs or other obligations and can’t or won’t want to go away with us anymore. Do it now. They’ll love it!

Stay tuned for Mid 2014, Thanks for stopping by!

We’d like to thank you for for checking out our 2013 season. This seems like a perfect time to catch you up on our first three seasons as there is currently about twenty inches of snow on the ground. It’s been a bit since our last post but Winter Storm Jonas has been keeping me busy shoveling, playing and sledding not to mention the hassle it’s been causing me at work. The kids love it but as the snow melts we can’t help but look forward to the 2016 Season.

Check out our first video below. I hope this to be the first of many as my intent is not only show you the places we travel to but also to illustrate it through a child’s eyes.

As you can probably tell, Sarah will be taking over the position of Lead Commentator shortly. I think she’s spoken 10-15 words to my one on this video but it makes for great TV. I might be impartial but she entertains me every day!

Ava expresses her moves better in a physical sense. I’ll have to get some footage of her “shaking her bootay” at the campground this summer.

You can see the top of Ryan’s head pass under at one moment but I think his absence is for the best as he makes his grand debut on my next post. Sarah references Lake Taghkanic in this video and you’ll have to wait ’til the 2015 posts to see more on that great New York State Park.

2016 will have a lot more video but we’re laying the foundation first.

Stay tuned for 2014 up next. A big year! Thanks for stopping by!