I'll have to admit Easter is one of the hardest holidays to celebrate in Howard our RV. First there is the whole kids not going to sleep and the Easter Bunny having to hide the eggs since the wide awake kids are in the room where the hiding takes place. Secondly there is the problem of lack of room to hide said eggs in a 300 square foot home and a rather smallish yard.
Decorating eggs, making a ham dinner, hiding presents and the like all require an extra dose of creativity for us, but with God's help it all works out.
Still, we had a pretty nice Easter this year, focused on the resurrection of Christ and not letting any other silly things mentioned above get us down! We had some nice discussions as a family about the true meaning of the holiday and we always try to incorporate elements of the cultural holiday and apply them to the sacredness of the Holy Day.
The campground we stayed at,
Capitol KOA in Millersville, Maryland, had some fun activities for the kids. All of the boys spent copious amounts of time on their jump pillow, burning off loads of energy in the process. Our younger set made some crafts and played some games on Saturday and then took part in the campground sponsored "Egg Scramble" early Sunday morning. They hid toys and eggs in hay on the ground and this novel approach to the egg hunt was pretty cool and no one got hurt or trampled in the process.
I am including our campground review of the Capitol KOA for those interested in staying here.
Staff - 10 - Campground managers were super friendly and you could tell they loved planning things for the kids! This contagious attitude infects the entire staff!
Natural surroundings - 9 - in the city but you can't tell. No traffic noises and lots of trees.
Roominess - 7 - Normal sized lots.
Facility Fun - 10 - Pool open during the warm months. Playground, jumping pillow, giant chess set, ping-pong, pool table. Planned Activities.
Facility usefulness - 9 - Laundry, dog run, propane, large camp store, dump, fire ring and picnic tables at each site.
Bathrooms - 8 - Bathroom is clean and up to date, individual showers are hot. With little kids though, we are not thrilled with the KOA individual shower set-up.
Cleanliness - 8 - Clean and well maintained.
Nearby attractions - 9 - Close to Washington DC and Baltimore and Annapolis.
Value - 6 - Paid $60 a night for a pull-through graveled site with full-hook-ups. This was using our KOA value card (we also applied some points, so our actual cost was less than this).
Overall - 8 - Not cheap, but a nice in between place for Baltimore and Washington site seers. Great staff!
Our four youngest boys have completed about a ton of junior ranger programs, over 50 actually, on our big family adventure. While we did not participate in Awana or Boy Scouts during this season of our lives, this system the National Park and some state parks have served as a great learning enhancer. They also encouraged lots of hands on activities and physical activities like picking up trash and taking hikes, interviewing rangers and spotting wildlife. As a body of work, doing fifty plus junior ranger programs is a feat accomplished that makes us quite proud of our boys. Blake learned a lot too, helping his younger brothers do the programs (he did about six or seven himself!).
