Summer 2012 - Camping Take 3

A few weekends ago, we had our third successful camping trip! We decided to take it up a notch after practice camping and successful tent camping with other people. This time we went camping with our friends who also have kids. It was so much fun and the kids all did so well. Prepare to be impressed: We camped with three kids 3 and under! Okay maybe it's not that impressive, but we were pretty proud of ourselves.

 The Gagliardi family was in town from Idaho, having just moved there from Wisconsin. They came back to visit their old stomping grounds and we were thrilled to see them. I have known Tiffany and Brian for one year longer than I've known Danny. We all worked at the same camp and we both met our husbands there! I don't actually call Tiffany "Tiffany", I call her Kuma, which is short for Kuma la Vista. At the camp we worked at, we all had camp names. Mine was Haleakala, Tiffany's: Kuma, Brian: Das Hampsta, Danny: Topple. I have only known Kuma as Kuma and I just can't make the switch to calling her by her real name, I don't deal well with change.

{2005}

Anyway, the Gag's were in town for week and stayed at my parents house for part of their time here so we got to spend some good time with them which was so nice. They have been way too far away for too long.

Friday around lunchtime we packed up and headed out. I had made the reservations at the only place I could find in Washington on our side of the mountains. I kept telling everyone we were going to Clear Lake Campground. Danny was excited to fish although someone told him that they had never heard of a campground at Clear Lake. Every time we looked up directions we would get different ones, some in Eastern WA and some closer to us. I wrote down the 3 lines of directions from the camp website and off we went. It was somewhere near where the campsite was supposed to be that Danny and I had different ideas of where we should be going. He had looked up Clear Lake and was going towards it while I was trying to get him to follow the directions I had written out. Eventually, after making several u-turns and Danny losing his driving privileges, we figured out that it was in fact Clear Creek and not Clear Lake. Details....

The campsite was actually quite nice and no mud in sight like our last camping experience. We set up our tents while the boys played in the dirt. We made foil dinners to eat just like we used to at camp and they were delicious.

{Camping boys}

 {Foil dinners, yum yum}

 Saturday morning we woke up to find little Daniel with about 15 mosquito bites on his head alone. Poor little fella. We cooked some blueberry pancakes and eggs for breakfast over the campfire and then headed off to find a park. While we were there a man walked through with his pet wolf. It seemed fairly friendly but I didn't let Cohen too close to it as he hasn't learned to be very gentle yet (just ask Russell out kitty). It's not everyday you see a wolf at the park!

 {Playing at the park}

 

 {Wolf at the park...on a leash?}

 From the park we went to the grocery store where I questioned the workers about how to climb the mountain we could see at the park. The mountain itself was too snowy to hike but we did find a map that they took off the wall and gave to us. After a quick trip to the local ranger station, we found a nice little walk we could do with the kids. It was flat with views of the river but not close enough for anyone to decide to go swimming.

{The sleepiest little hiker}

{How sweet are they!?}

This was probably one of my favorite parts of the camping trip. It was so nice out and the river was so pretty. I carried Cohen in the Ergo on the first half of the hike and he was so good. The whole way there were these little white butterflies (moths?) that I kept seeing and I just kept thinking of Carter. It felt like I had both of my boys with me and it was just so nice and peaceful. The outdoors is so good for my soul.

For dinner Saturday night we put some potatoes in the fire to bake and made hotdogs and the menfolk poured chili over it all. After the kids went to bed we got to sit around the fire and do some catching up.

Aside from a broken camp chair, a few runaways and some sippy cup/bottle borrowing, the trip was fairly uneventful. The kids were all so, so good. No one fell in the fire or the river or down the toilet. Cohen did have one minor incident with the gravel and now has a few scratches on his head, but that was it. Success! We had a lot of fun and can't wait to do it again.

p.s. The men insisted that we stuff our propane-less camp stove into the car at the very last minute. We didn't use it one single time, except to prop up the camera to take this picture. SO glad we brought it.