Camping fun!

We went camping last weekend (Labor Day weekend) at Battleground Lake State Park. It was a beautiful place! Nice trails, nice warm lake water (heated by underground lava tubes, I believe) and we had a beautiful and private campsite 1/3 of a mile from the parking area and the bathroom that the kids were not afraid of (Outhouses are NOT their thing. But then again, who really likes to use an outhouse?). Lots of walking! We had a wonderful 1st evening there. The weather was perfect. The sky was clear and the air was pretty warm. We ate hot dogs (Jack's favorite) that we roasted on the campfire and made s'mores. Yum! Then the kids all went peacefully to sleep. We did too, pretty much...

In the middle of the night, it started to RAIN. Not just little drops, but a torrential downpour. When we got up in the morning, there were puddles everywhere! Water was flowing in streams down the trails. You pretty much couldn't walk without stepping into a puddle. And, as Mike would say, we had a small lake in our tent. We were pretty determined to stick it out at first, but when the rain continued like this through to the afternoon, we decided to pack up. We had to finish our camping trip at home.

Cute and happy kids eating pancakes and hot chocolate Saturday morning. Mike put up a tarp over the picnic table, so we could at least eat without the rain pounding on us!

Mike is holding a soaked and dirty Jack. He fell face-down into a mud puddle or two...

See, he's completely soaked. And he is wearing his spare jacket already (and a completely different outfit than he started out in) around 11am.

Paige, playing in a beloved mud puddle at our campsite.

Even though we decided we were done and were soaked to the core, we just couldn't leave without finding at least one geocache! Paige found this one!

This was the grittiest, wettest, messiest adventure yet! We did have fun and the kids LOVED the rain! But we knew that they wouldn't if we stayed. If we would have stayed, we would have been almost constantly wet and cold for the next two days. I was We want our kids to LOVE camping and want to do it again.

Camping at home-

We made s'mores, using the grill for the marshmallows.

Paige and Jonah slept in Mike's two person tent in the family room.

And we went adventuring! On Sunday, we took the kids to Snoqualmie Falls, where we again got completely SOAKED! The kids loved the hike down to the falls. Jack even hiked the whole way down, not missing a puddle to jump in. He walked at least half way back. Jack is such a trooper! All of our kids are, actually. It is so fun to go adventuring with them!



And Monday, we went geocaching! Again, it was WET! We found 4 geocaches!

Good fun, messy times... I don't know how many loads of laundry I have done in the past few days. Too many... But it's worth it!