Camping at The Farm

Some background...my dad grew up on a farm in Santa Anna.  We still have a portion of land there, and my dad goes up pretty regularly to work on projects and just enjoy the time outdoors.  We've been talking about going for months, so since Claire had a Monday off for MLK Day, we thought we should take advantage of the long weekend and spend some time at the farm with Dad.

We knew that the kids would enjoy sleeping in a tent, so Robert went to Academy and REI and got a tent and sleeping bags for all of us.  It was going to be cold at night, so we got extra warm sleeping bags and took a space heater that we used to warm up the tent before we got in and went to sleep.

Since the kids had never camped before, Robert set up the tent in our living room the night before so that they could check it out and get an idea of what the space would be like.  They had so much fun with their "camping practice"!


Santa Anna is about 3 hours from San Antonio.  We left after school on Friday, so it was already dark when we arrived.  Dad had started a fire, so while Robert set up the tent, the kids and I got started on dinner.  They loved cooking hot dogs over the fire, but they were most excited about the s'mores.  (I was, too!)


We sat around the fire for awhile and then went to bed.  The kids did so good - they slept really well in their bags.  I got a little cold, and Robert turned on the heater for me a couple of times to warm up, so I was glad we had it.  The next morning we all went into town for breakfast at the coffee shop.  The hot coffee and food got us ready for some exploring!

We visited the cows that a neighbor keeps on the property, and found a nice surprise when we got over to them - a new baby calf that was only a few hours old.






So much space to run




Dad set up some targets, and the kids got their first experience shooting BB guns.




We took a long walk and hunted for fossils (there is a ton of fossilized coral out there!), and Will and Claire threw rocks in the tank.  They could have kept at it for hours.






Doing some tinkering


We had to be back in San Antonio the next morning, so we left Santa Anna around lunch time.  We all had so much fun, and we are looking forward to more trips out there in the future.