Camping

One of my favorite sayings is "Life Scout for life". It reflects my ability to have somewhat floated through scouting without obtaining much knowledge. This summer, I have been trying to improve on my camping skills. So far, I have been on 3 trips and Steph and I just went on another one this past weekend. We also invited our two nephews (Simon and Torsten) as well as our friends the McDonnels and Braithwaites.

It was Torsten and Simon's first camping trip. So it was fun to show them some of our favorite parts of the Great Outdoors--

The excellent foil dinners (Note Torsten's red eyelid from an earlier incident with the zipline):

Cameron's 6-pack S'mores:


Giant Mexican Marshmallows for roasting:

Sitting around the fire:

Here is the youngest member of our crew, Collin McDonel, chilling by the fire:

Cameron surprised us all by being a master fire-builder/marshmallow roaster:


Right next to our campsite, there were some spots for hammocks. While a person might usually use such things to relax. Simon and Torsten found a good new use out of them.



After a good night's rest, the McDonnels and Nylands headed up the Mountain Loop Hwy to go on a hike to the ice caves. Steph, Monica, and I had done the hike when I first moved here (a post of that hike, can be found here), but I was eager to do it again, especially with the boys.

Mapping out the trail:


The log that we had to climb over on our last trip had been replaced by a new bridge. Much better:


When we finally got up to the ice caves, it appeared that much had changed. The opening to the caves were much smaller, but they were still very nice and and cool.


Simon and Torsten enjoyed carving the ice from the walls.

This is the last cave, which we actually walked in last time. I am glad we didn't try it this time because some of the wall came crashing down while we were watching.




After the hike, the boys were pretty tired/thirsty:


We stopped in Granite Falls on the way home to go to Cranky J's. It was considerable more crowded this time around, but I still enjoyed my homemade cherry vanilla coke and Green River.


Overall, it was a fun weekend and we loved the time that we got to spend with our nephews and friends. Thanks guys!