Camping!

We finally took our kids camping last weekend! We had never taken them before because of the kids' ages and abilities and behaviors, blah blah blah. It seemed we always had a new walker or a crawler/roller/on-the-knees walker until this year. I wasn't sure I wanted my kids to get that dirty. I still wouldn't want to take a crawling baby, but I know now that we could have handled it. We're all pretty tough and our kids were literally, very "happy campers!" We roasted marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire, played in the woods, did some hiking and some geocaching (of course!), played on the beach...It was so much fun!

This was our campground at Larrabee State Park, just south of Bellingham. We chose a walk-in site so we had to trudge our stuff up and down a pretty steep hill about an eighth of a mile or so, but it was well worth it. We didn't have to worry about our kids running into the street. They got to run in the woods instead! And we all seem to like more seclusion and adventure. It doesn't feel like camping to me when I can see cars or people's RVs next to us. We could see two or three tents, but they were all spaced a ways apart. This was a beautiful place!

And if you didn't notice how ginormous our tent was (We weren't really roughin' it!), here are a couple of pictures to illustrate. The tent has two rooms. Here are Paige and Jonah in the back room, asleep. Notice how much room they have!
And here is a picture (not as good...) showing the front room. We were able to set up the playpen for Jack and still have PLENTY of room for our stuff and Mike and me.

Marshmallows were very fun to roast! Paige had roasted a marshmallow when she was Jack's age, but doesn't remember it. This was Jonah and Jack's first time. I loved how Jack said "momamow!" and that Jonah said his favorite part of camping was eating the "cream" inside his burnt marshmallows.
Here are all three roasting their marshmallows. I am carefully leaning from what could become a marshmallow torch. Look how careful Paige is not to burn her marshmallow.

Am I really blowing out two marshmallows at the same time? I don't remember that, but it sure looks like it!


I think I need some back up!

After a few marshmallows, our kids (who are often deprived of sugar) get a little goofy...

Jack loved to help build the fire!



Mike's 33rd birthday was on Sunday! He wanted to go camping for his birthday, didn't want anything for a gift, as usual. But, he did need a couple new shirts for work and a couple of wonderful cards from his children!

Mike was surprised at the beautiful pop-up card Paige made for him.
And he was scared when he opened up his card from Jonah. If you cannot tell from the picture, Jonah made a spider on a spider web.

Jonah's was so thrilled to scare his Daddy!
And a super cool part of our weekend didn't have to do with camping really. Our friends, Colin and Stephanie teach at Western and they live about 6 miles from the campground, so we got to see a lot of them! They came to the campsite and visited and roasted marshmallows with us. Well, Steph roasted marshmallows and Colin amused the kiddos... We also spent time with them at their house (They have the best toys!). And they took us on a tour of Western Washington University on Saturday and for a walk down to a dock on the water on Sunday. You can just walk to the water from their house! It was so nice to spend so much time with them. They told us that we were their plans for the weekend. They had nothing else to do, except for a run, swim and bike ride by Colin, who is always preparing for Iron man triathlons. It was so nice spending time with our friends and kids, not having to worry about anything, just enjoying one another and beautiful Bellingham (I always want to move there when we visit!).

Here are the kids on the WWU campus by one of the "little green men" statues.

Paige and Jonah loved these log "stairs"

And also these zigzag stairs.
Here is Colin, Paige and Jonah on the dock, playing with their shadows.


We are all looking forward to camping again really soon! The next few weekends will be busy with Paige's birthday, a company picnic, Mike's Rainier climb...but we will have to try to camp a few times in August and September. Maybe by then I will have the campfire smoke smell out of my hair!