Delaware State Park Fall Festival

After seeing my friends photos each year of her awesome camping trips I knew we had to go!!

The last weekend of September is the fall festival at Delaware State Park(Ohio). We had to get on line 6 months to the day in advance to book our spot! Everyone has such a great time each year they all come back, so I was anxious to say the least! I had it marked in my calendar forever and was on in March at 7am! The park is huge and has a bath house in each camping section so we never had to wait to use the bathroom.

We weren’t sure how this trip was going to go with kiddos ages almost 2, newly 5, and almost 7. I was mainly worried about the almost 2 year old who still naps and is in a crib but climbs out of pack n plays. We were supposed to stay Friday and Saturday night. However, the temps began dropping before this weekend and the nights were in the 40s. So with that being said we decided to only stay Saturday night. Friday night we missed popcorn and a campfire movie. Saturday was when the majority of the fall fun was happening! We got there at 9am and set up camp!

There was a decorating contest which I decided not to enter when I saw how great some of the other sites were haha. Last year I had stocked up on some silly stuff at the dollar store after Halloween sale.

                                                   

After setting up our site we caught the wagon ride, that started at 11, to the check in gate. Here they had all kinds of treats and crafts set up by park volunteers. Some were free and some things cost a few bucks. Each kid made a Buckeye necklace for $1 a piece.

Then we all got free ice cream and made fun treasure hunt bottles. We also did a guided nature walk searching for pipe cleaner spiders and learned about the woods as we went. They also had fun contests at the check in gate for the kids to enter.

Right next to our site was an easy hiking trail we did as a family which led to Delaware Lake. It’s was a nice little walk and great getting to admire the outdoors and do something different with the kiddos.

Later in the evening around 5 they shut down all the driving around the sites so all the kiddos could trick or treat safely. At check in you get a tag to show that you were participating in handing out candy.  Just about every camp site handed out candy. All their little baskets were full after just doing our section of sites.

Sleeping:

Being super new campers we didn’t have all the gear needed for sleeping. I know based on the truck pic you’d think we have everything every camper needs! But some how we have 4 tents and no sleeping bags. The kids had their little sleeping bags with their names on them that we set up on patio chair pads. And Emmy we set up in a pack and play. Again worried here because kids her age never stay under the blankets. Keith and I slept on a queen air mattress and we brought and had a bunch of extra blankets. It was still chilly!

Food:

We under estimated ourselves here. We were planning to use the camp fire and this little two burner stove Keith got from his parents a few years ago. The night before the trip Keith was inspecting it and seeing if we needed propane etc... and left it set up in the garage. Later that night after picking up snacks and food, I pulled into the garage with the Jeep and ran right over the stove! Opps!! So while I got the kids showered and put to bed Keith went back out to try and find parts to fix the stove before the morning. 😩

We mostly brought easy foods for snacks and breakfast that didn’t require cooking - cereal and mini doughnuts. After doing soup and hot dogs for lunch and mac and cheese for dinner we definitely realized we could have done a nice hot breakfast on our stove. We also brought s’mores stuff and jiffy pop for around the fire. Some how it took us 3 packages of jiffy pop to get it right. The first 2 ended up being trash.

A few other fun tips to make things extra fun for the kids:

We brought some Halloween crafts to do during the day, glow sticks for the evenings, and fire additive that changes the flame colors. 

All in all it was a great first camping trip and we are already looking for new camp sites to try this spring!! We will also be going back here next year 🎃