We went camping from Tuesday - Saturday in our favourite camping spot. Christchurch in the Forest of Dean. It's near Wales/England border. It was kind of last minute although we had said that we wanted to go camping before the summer was out, but with just getting back from Contagious I wasn't too sure about packing up and heading out again. One HUGE bonus was that Auntie Sue had washed all the kids' clothes and so that meant that I didn't even need to touch the kids' stuff...the bag was ready to go! Monday we spent most of the day buying camping gear...we needed a new tent - we had outgrown our old tent. So off we went hunting for a reasonably priced BIG family tent. Thankfully we found one, a 7 berth tent - 2 rooms (5 and 2). We also purchased another child seat for the bike,and a bike rack for the van because we knew that there was a great bike trail we wanted to go on. We borrowed a BUNCH of camping gear from Lee and Sue, including the BEST thing ever - a 'luggable loo'!!! 
We packed up the van Tuesday morning and headed over to see Nanny and Grandad who had just arrived back from their trip to Canada. From there we set off for the Forest of Dean. We arrived in just in time to get the tent up, cook, eat, and get in the tent before the rain came! In our haste to get packed up we forgot to bring a mallet so the tent wasn't completely secure. It was very windy that night, Dean and I woke up several times in the night thinking that night was NEVER going to end! Wednesday was raining all day off and on. So we explored the local towns (picked up a mallet to hammer down the tent pegs) and stopped in the local cinema to get some relief from the rain. Levi wasn't too enamoured with sitting in a cinema for the afternoon, so I was trying to get him out and didn't see a step - I fell and sprained my ankle!!! Thankfully, Levi wasn't hurt. Wednesday evening it stopped raining so we enjoyed being outdoors for a while. 
Aleah liked to play in the van - she was 'driving' to all sorts of wonderful places.Thursday we went on an bike ride through the forest - after stopping off at a local pharmacy to get a tubi-grip for my ankle that had now swollen up quite nicely! With the little ones strapped in to their seats and the older ones set on their bikes we took off on an 18km bike trail!!! The first bit of the trail is uphill!!! Not a steep incline, but enough that your legs BURN!! The kids and I had to get off and walk out bikes a few times, and a few tears were shed. When we got to the 1/2 way point we stopped and had some lunch, then headed off to the best part of the the trail - the downhill part.
There were a few places where we were all pulling on our brakes to keep control, and some pretty scary turns. The kids did a great job and were really thrilled with themselves when we finished the trail. It rained some more that night, but since we were all pretty tired (and I was coming down with a cold)it was nice to get a bit of and early night. Friday was a bit more rain on and off. We explored some more of the local towns, and went to Goodrich Castle. The kids loved walking through the remains (dated back to the 12th Century) of the castle and listening to the audio tour. Just as we finished exploring the castle it poured down with rain for about 20 minutes (just enough time to look around the shop)! We decided to make life easy for ourselves and get fish and chips for dinner. Again, we spent the evening in the central part of the tent. (Thank goodness for a new tent, we wouldn't have been able to do this in our old tent!) Once the 3 younger ones were asleep, Abby and I played Phase Ten and Dean was able to spend some time reading one of the many books that he is working his way through.
Giving Levi a 'bath' in the washing up bucket in the tent where it was warm and dry...Aleah is waiting her turn! (Boy, does she need it!)We woke up Saturday morning to glorious sunshine and a campsite full to the brim with campers! (It's a long weekend here in the UK!) The kids were able to spend some good time playing in the campsites play area while Dean and I packed up. I must say, Dean does such a great job squeezing all our STUFF in! I would've just started throwing things out!!! That basically sums up our trip, althought there are loads of other stories to tell but I would be here all night. They'll all come out, I'm sure.
Dean's Nan and Grandad (his Dad's parents) live in Chepstow, S. Wales, and we had to pass through their town to get home - so we stopped by to see them for a bit. We had a lovely lunch with them and then we all went to a local Church/community fair. It was lovely to be able to spend time with them. (Thanks again for the yummy lunch, Nan and Grandad!!)
We arrived at home around 6:30pm, and were all VERY happy to be sleeping in our own beds, in the dry and warm! We are still unpacking and doing laundry. All in all we had a great time, life in our family is always and adventure and we wouldn't have it any other way!!!!
