Tag Archives: pizza pies

Backyard Camping At Home On The Cheap

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My son loves the idea of camping!

That said, we have a packed daily schedule that really won’t enable us to go to a real camp site for quite a while, so instead we decided to have a camping experience at home.

While camping in itself isn’t really expensive, camping at home is even cheaper and almost as fun!

We started the evening by firing up a fire using firewood bought from a store in our backyard portable fire pit.  Next we got out our old camp pie makers and created some pizza pies (a favorite at our house), but you could also create other pies such as apple, cherry, etc.  That’s when we encountered a small problem with our fire!

Fire Problem:

I really needed to start the campfire an hour before we started cooking.  To have a great campfire, it’s good to have red glowing embers.  I started the wood burning, and then had the kids try to cook their pizza pies over the new still burning wood.

We were still able to cook the pies, but it took a long time and would have been much better if they embers were glowing.  marshmallows would have been okay at this point, but not pizza pies.  All told, we cooked pizza pies, hotdogs and marshmallows at our at home camp out.  We even sung a few campfire songs (softly since our neighbors live close by).

My son had a friend over, and they put together the tent while the campfires was burning itself out.  It was fun watching them try to put the tent together.  It took them a good bit of time longer than it for me, but it was fun watching them figure out the “putting the tent up” puzzle.

They decided to put the tent up on our deck, so the next step was to get additional blankets to form a cushioned pad so the deck planks weren’t so hard.  Next came the board games, which included “Trouble”, “Battleship and a checkered board that I assume was to be used to play chess or checkers. My wife, daughter and I went inside.  At this point our camping experience was done (my wife hates to camp) since my wife and I had to go to work tomorrow.  We left a screened window open so we could hear if there were any problems though!

All told, the entire experience cost us less than $10 since we had all of the equipment beforehand.  I’m sure my son will be happy now that he has camped out with a friend, and we are still able to maintain our hectic, sports packed schedule.

Happy backyard camping!

MR

My Perfectly Frugal Fathers Day

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As a father of 2 children (9 year old boy and a 6 year old girl),  I always thought that “Fathers Day” was about me!  Ordering the kids around on Fathers Day … “Hey son, get me the paper” or “Daughter, get me my slippers” almost seemed like that thing to say.  Afterall, it’s my day and I’m in charge (imagine my evil laugh… Mwahahahaahhaha).  Of course, I’ve never do that, but I can see where Dads could easily assume that’s what Fathers Day was about.  But yesterday (much like when the Grinch’s heart grewing 3 sizes that day), I’ve come to realize that Fathers Day is about my kids and the memories we can create together.

I want my kids to look back and think of me with fond memories someday, and if I do this parenting thing right, I get to enjoy the experience along the way too ;).  So from now on, Fathers Day will be about me trying to create some great memories on that day with my kids.  And that is what I did this Fathers Day!

Here is my list of our frugal Fathers Day activities.

  • Opened my Fathers Day present, which was a new portable Fire Pit (Dad acted reasonable excited)
  • Went to pickup McDonalds breakfast for the kids
  • With help from the entire family, we moved our old furniture back into the Family Room, letting my son and daughter help with moving and decision making
  • Packed up and went swimming at the grandparents.
  • Swam as certain monsters (shark, blob and Orca).
  • Was an Orca Daddy to my younger daughter.  And let the kids ride on the Orca
  • Watch Kids play as a trainer and dog trying to learn to swim.
  • (Helped Grandparents with some manual labor, digging and moving dirt took at least an hour… yuck)
  • Let son take 2 small wheelbarrows of dirt to dirt pile.
  • When home and kept an eye on my son while he started up the fire pit (we got the wood for free from grandpa)
  • My wife made pizza pies to cook over the fire pit.
  • Daughter and I weeded and water the flower bed (from mother’s day)
  • Son cooked the pizza pies over the firepit
  • We all at the pizza pies and toasted marshmallows.
  • Son and Daughter threw the ball for our dog to chase (until the dog got tired and stopped).
  • The kids and dad went on a lightning bug (or firefly) hunt.  We caught about 15  lightning bugs and put them in a bug container for my daughter to watch at night.
  • Played with kids right before they went to bed.

And that was my Fathers Day, other than the McDonalds meal, it was a very frugal Fathers Day, but one filled with fond memories.  Its funny how watching my kids playing or working reminds me of Normal Rockwell scenes… except better! 

In my mind, I took so many great photos of the kids doing various things today!

 This was by far the greatest Fathers Day I ever had!!!

-MR