A Rambling Saturday

Today we had a rambling Saturday with our two younger boys (eldest one is at a youth group camp till tomorrow). We didn't hurry anywhere, but we did go on a shopping trip.

There is nowhere close by that sells serious camping gear (like good tent pegs and poles). Camping season is coming near and we've got a list of things that we wanted to buy before our big camping trip to Hokkaido in June/July. So, with a free Saturday and one less boy to tow around (it's amazing how much difference that makes!), we took off to our favourite camping store. It took about an hour in moderate traffic to get there. Ah the fun! We even found a book with Hokkaido campsites in it.

Our favourite camping shop.

But they didn't have everything we wanted so we stopped at another large store (general living/hardware/stationary/ bikes/furniture) on the way home. The bonus was that that store also has pets, so the boys were happy with us pottering around saying, "Oh yes, I've been meaning to get around to getting one of those!" You can tell we seldom shop, except for food and daily necessities.

Between stores we enjoyed a Japanese convenience store lunch. It only cost about 1,500 yen or AU$15.

Once home the boys enjoyed their weekend "screen time" (1/2 an hour each on Saturday and Sunday), playing Miniclip games.

Then I nabbed one of them to help bake biscuits for morning and afternoon teas for the week to come and the other one went to get the light on his bike fixed. When the bike-fixer came back the boys swapped and then they both got to lick the beaters and bowl clean (one of our house-rules: that only those who help bake get to lick).

"A" is approximately where we live in western Tokyo
and "B" is where we're going for our
next camping trip.

And we played around with our various camping purchases. The boys are particularly impressed with our new lantern. We're not so impressed with our new foot pump. It doesn't connect well with two of our air-beds.

Our next camping trip is at the end of the month and in a totally different direction to previous trips. We're going east, down the bottom of the Boso Penninsula. It's only about 3 km from a beach, so we're hoping for spectacular spring weather! You know, a good portion of the fun we have with camping is in the planning and anticipation.

I was surprised by our most conservative boy saying that the fact that we were going to try out a new campsite this time was the most exciting thing about this trip! He's been the one most reluctant to throw himself into enjoying camping. I'm glad that he's starting to come around.

But overall, today's been just a little more peaceful with only two boys and they've generally been very agreeable. I'm so thankful for days like this.