Easter Weekend at Texas State Rail Road Campground

Back to a favorite for this Easter - RDB and I invited The 5 J's and D&J+3 to join us for the long weekend at the Texas State Rail Road campground in Rusk, Texas.  (Finally, one I said we'd be back to, and guess what?! We're back!!)

We have so much fun with all these kiddos! And we did so much this weekend, it's taken me two days to write about it!

RDB and I arrived on Thursday night and got pick of the sites (in the dark). But, it turned out we picked the two best spots int eh park - we needed all the space we could get for the kiddos (and pup!) to run around.

When The 5 J's made it in Friday afternoon, we hopped on the Easter Egg Express - and spent a good part of the afternoon riding the train, running around playing games, hunting Easter eggs, and looking for LJ's shoes in the corn pit.  Found lots of interesting candy (Peas and Carrots Gummies, anyone?) but never found his shoes.

D&J+3 arrived while we were off on our train adventure but they found our site without too much trouble (yes, I had decorated, and yes, I made a few other random kids cry when they couldn't take my windmills and balloons with them as they walked past).  They've had an addition to the family since their last trip out with us - AM is 18 months old and is the sweetest little thing on the planet - at least, Diesel seems to think so!

Knowing that most of the activities for the weekend were kid-centered, I wanted to make sure that the adults had some fun, too, so we had a quick "Adults Only" Easter Egg Hunt now that D&J+3 were here.  Cadbury ain't got nothing on the way I fill my eggs!

We've seen all kinds of critters and creepy-crawlies in our camping adventures, but this was the first time we've ever seen so many strange flying bugs - hold on a minute, we saw a few thousand flying bugs at our first Easter trip, so maybe it's not so strange.  What was weird was the number of swarming termites we saw.  Ewwww is right. 

Saturday was spent enjoying the playground, the hammock, and various yummies for lunch.  RDB and I really like our black bean burgers from Costco.  I had mushrooms and garlic from my Greenling box to grill alongside them - but wasn't sure I was going to be able to get them cooked well enough.  I realized that I needed a press, or steam cover of some kind and sure enough the lid off of one of our smaller stainless pots worked perfectly.  Hey, its the little things that count!

Martha Jo made a stop in at our campsite that afternoon and we crafted a Pinterest idea: melted bead wind-chimes (and necklaces).  It was a lot of fun!!  Check out how we did it here.

Monday was going to be one of D&J+3's munchkin's birthdays, so I decided to surprise them with a cake.  I made it in my rice cooker.  Yep, a rice cooker cake!  It may have been small, but it made a big impact!

I think he loved it.  ;-)

We did our traditional egg hunt - lots of eggs, giggles, and fun.  And no funky candy in these, of course!  It's amazing to see how much these kiddos have grown since our first Easter camping trip.

Another one in the books.  It's hard to go back to work after such a good weekend.  RDB and I keep dreaming about the one-day when we'd like to leave the jobs behind and camp full time.  Until then, we'll just keep enjoying all the blessings and sunshine we have as we go on these trips.

We were in sites 13 and 15 at Texas State Rail Road Campground.  13 was extremely level and perfectly shaded, with a few trees spaced just right for the hammock.  Both sites together had enough space for 12 of us, one trailer, one pop-up and one tent, and two trucks and an SUV.  Close to the bathhouse and playground and a short walk from the train depot.

And yes, we'll be back again to this one! ;-)

For more camping photos, go here.