Camping Trip

We went camping! It was a fairly epic 1 night 1.5 day experience, I'd say:-) The kids were so totally excited, it was crazy. This was their first time to camp and sleep in a tent!

We went with a bunch of friends, and all had such a blast. The kids had no idea what to expect, and had all kinds of wild ideas about our "wilderness" adventure. In reality, we went to a State Park that is on the beach, and just down the road...no exactly exotic or anything, but at least we gave them a somewhat realistic idea of what camping is (although, often camping has no beaches:-).

As Grey told his Aunt this morning "It was like, it was not like the wild, 'cause there were like, no trees all over the place" - I think he was alluding to the "cleared out" campsites:-)

When one of Kenna's friends suggested they go exploring, Kenna was over heard saying "Ok, but we should stay close to here, because we could run in to something that could kill us".

Suffice it to say, we saw no wild animals. Well. Nothing lethal anyway. There were lots of squirrels. A hawk landed in our site for a minute, and I saw a little lizard at the beach, and that was pretty much it...

Except the huge crabs we found!!

This was the medium crab we found. One ran right across our "towel area" and inbetween a friends legs! It was huge! It was hard to catch, but we briefly did until it escaped. I don't have a picture of him, but he was bigger than this guy. Claire is being very brave!

We spent lots of time Friday night and Saturday at the beach!

The guys spent lots of time doing stupid manly things. Like "how long can we keep our legs in this cooler of ice?"

Kenna & Jackson, and the beautiful endless sky

So pretty!

Grey, Kenna and Claire, exploring the back of our campsite

I spot 5 people in this tree:-)

Standing at one end of the group site, looking all the way too the other side. They were still setting up tents over there. Our borrowed tent is the one with the kelly green top.

Setting up the beds:-)

The far side of the site. We went with 4 other families.

The guys could not forsake their weekly Saturday morning workout. In fact, two "regular workout buddies" who did not come camping, came at 6:45 in the morning to not miss the workout on the beach

A truly good time was had by all! No one got overly sunburned (just sun kissed), the bugs weren't too bad, it didn't get too cold at night, and it didn't rain! We laughed a lot and made some good camping memories. Here are a few more pics, all in random order...

So Josh says, "Can I roast a marshmallow for anyone?" Haha

Peter is telling an interesting story:-)

Brooks and Pete dug a hole nearly to China

All the camping kids!

Most of the camping adults - we just hung out, talking, in the water

We had YUMMY food. One delicious idea we tried out: A waffle ice cream cone, sliced banana, strawberry, chocolate chips, and mini marshmallows. Wrap well in foil, and roast (we laid on grill thingy) over the campfire. Sooo good!

Brooks and Claire got buried

Thanks to technology, we were able to watch California Chrome make his run for the Triple Crown. We were alllll huddled around a little iphone, watching it live, and cheering him on. We would have loved to see another triple crown winner in our lifetime. So we were sad he didn't win. We left in time to come home and watch the Rangers play game 2 (and lose, in double OT. Boo)

A nice little "stay-cation" I guess. We really want to do it again next year too. Sleeping on the ground is ok, for only one night:-)