I'm honestly pretty close to being done saying things like "well, in COVID times..." or "because of the new normal" because, well, it really IS the new normal and we all KNOW what is going on these days. BUT! One thing that hasn't changed is that we still celebrate birthdays and we're still making memories, and for the McGrath's, camping isn't new...so we're just doing as much of that as we can these days!
After the initial crazy of COVID calmed down and we realized that camping was one of the things that we could do "safely" I rushed to the websites for some of our favorite places to see what I could get in place. I typically plan the majority of our camping in early Jan/Feb because even before the rest of the world decided camping was cool, the good sites filled up fast and it was always easier to lock down what I wanted earlier rather than later. So, when May-ish rolled around I knew I was already late to the game.
Instead of playing the "wait and see" game trying to decide if we could do a party with kids for Abby's birthday, I decided I'd try to book us a camping trip knowing we could get our "ride or die" group to come along. Honestly it worked out great and we had an amazing time!
We took the girls on their first ever float trip - which was really fun for them. The water was pretty low (and slow) and sometimes (more than we'd have liked) our butts were dragging on the rocky bottom, but slow was perfect for the kids. We opted to give them tubes with bottoms (you can see them in the picture above) instead of ones that you could stick your full body through. Looking back, we'd have done that differently - the kids were hot and wishing they could be more in the water. Ryan and Dan took the brunt of that mistake. Dan had hazel draped over his lap for the last hour of the float.
And! My parents even joined us for one of the nights. Our family and my parents decided to head out on Thursday evening so we had all day Friday with them. They left on Saturday morning while we were on our float trip, and then we had the second half of the weekend with Dan and Erin. It was really a great trip.
Of course, no kid birthday would be complete without a special birthday cake (or cupcake) from Grandpa, and some toys/fun things to open. Abby lucked out this year! She got a few new Lego sets (the girls LOVE Lego's in 2020!!), a telescope from Auntie, and a Barbie Dream house from Grandma/Papa/Kayden/Lincoln/and us.
These girls are so lucky and I hope that even though this year is a little weird, we're instilling in them that different doesn't mean "not fun" and that while things aren't the same, we can still make them special. Because we can't change the world around us, just how we react to it - and DARN IT if I wasn't going to make my two sweet girl's summer birthday's all they could be in 2020!
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