Camping

This past weekend was our ward campout at Cascade Park up in Granite Falls.  As luck would have it, it was also the same weekend as Stephanie's parents campout so we all decided to go up a day early and camp together as a family.

Henry loves being outside so camping was pretty much heaven for him.

There were many bats to be played with.

My partner in crime in her camping gear.  Henry wasn't the best sleeper while we were there, but this girl can totally roll with the no-sleep punches with the best of them.

On Friday, all of the boys went up to the archery range.  I soon discovered that my brother-in-law Mark is pretty serious about his archery(notice his own compound bow that he brought).

But not as serious as me.  See that whistle, that's for me taking command on the archery range.  You'd better watch out.

4th of July + camping

I've been wanting to post about our camping trip over the 4th of July but because the pictures I have are just sort of random, I've been holding off. I'm going to do it anyway, because it was lots of fun and I want to remember it.

We have been going to Kayak Point on the 4th of July for many, many years. Last year I tried to figure out just how many and it's around 20 years. That means I'm getting old. A few years we started camping at the park too, making the holiday celebrations last even longer. I have to say it's not my favorite campground. It's nice that it's so close to where we picnic on the holiday, but the tree covering is too much so that even when it was sunny down at the beach, we were chilly up at the campsites. Also, it rained on us the first night which made me angry and although I can't blame the campsite on that, it took a couple of days for all of our stuff to dry out because of all the trees. Tradition makes most things worth it, though, so we're likely to return.

The best part about this camping trip is that last year my mom's side of the family started joining us for the festivities. This year we had practically everyone with us, traveling from as far as Spokane and even Arizona! This is a big deal for our family because we don't have family reunions (I guess that's what this was) and rarely even see each other on the big holidays, despite how much we all love each other. It was great to see everyone and strengthen those relationships. It's always wonderful to see my Grandma Jackie and it was special to have Henry meet her during the camping trip.

Here are some highlights:

Leah riding her scooter between campsites.

Rob and I went on a walk in the morning down to the beach

I love his sleeping-bag head

Playing games with Mallory and Scott. It was great to get to know Scott a little during the trip, since he'll be joining our family soon - they are getting married this week! It looks sunny in this picture. It was cold, though.

My dad planned a Independence Day devotional of sorts. He would.

Henry got to spend a lot of time with cousins (2nd cousins? 1st cousins once removed?) from Arizona. Here he is with Liz.

I love this picture of Henry looking at his Great-Grandma Jackie ("GG")

That mountain man is my Uncle Mike.

Another one with Henry and GG.

Here are some taken on the 4th, down at the beach.

Mark and his girls, my nieces.

So fun that Clara has a walking stick just like Grandma's cane.

Mark and Leah.

Our friends, the McDonnels, came - it's their third year of joining in on the fun. That's why Kayak Point on the 4th has always been so great - everyone is invited and it has become a tradition for many of our friends over the years. Collin was just a tiny baby his first year, here he is looking like such a big boy!

Camping in Chelan

Our road trip was a couple of months ago and we still haven't posted about everything we did. Rob put up some nice posts from a couple stops, so I thought I'd share about Lake Chelan. Our last stop in our 4-stop trip.

We thought about going to the lake, finding a hike, or some other outdoor adventure. But, we had had enough of that during the previous days on our trip and decided, instead, to hit up the water park! It didn't have a wave pool or, my absolute favorite thing in the whole entire world, a lazy river, but it had some really fun slides that entertained us for a few hours.

After setting up camp (again) we went into town to see Toy Story 3 here:

and we sat here: (edge of the balcony)

and my handsome husband is right here:

Chelan is a cute cute town. We didn't see much of it, but I do recommend visiting. We camped at the State Park which was okay. Our spot was not private at all, which can be a bummer (because it doesn't feel like camping and can be a little awkward), but there are plenty of private sites that I'm sure you have to call way ahead for. It was another warm night (the previous night, in Oroville, had been warm too, but both nights in Manning were very cold), in fact we woke up to a very warm tent. The sun was right on us and it was a frantic, desperate, couple moments of trying to breathe the outside air. I had decided to start changing before it hit me fully and I wouldn't let Rob open the tent door. He had to stick his mouth up to a crack in the tent window to breathe in some outside air. I thought it was funny, and very classic of camping.

The only picture we have of this campsite:
Rob playing around with the camera (something about F Stop mumbo jumbo)

Zion's Camp

This past weekend we saw that it was going to be beautiful weather up here in Seattle, because of this, we decided it would be a good time to take our nieces and nephews camping at Zion's camp in Belfair. Zion's camp is the church property that I spent a lot of time at as a youngster, but I haven't been back to in 10 or so years. They have done a lot of updates and its a really fun place to camp.

Here is a video of us enjoying our time there:

Canada Camping

So now back to that trip that we took at the beginning of the month. After we left Vancouver, we made our way East for our first night of camping in BC. On the way we stopped off in Hope, BC, which we soon found out was a shooting location for a few movies. How do I look as an action star?

While in Hope, we heard from the tourist center guy about some railroad tunnels nearby. I am a sucker for old railroad tunnels, especially long and dark ones. The Othello Tunnels did not disappoint.



After we left Hope, we drove another couple hours on the Crowsnest Highway. Our final destination for the next couple of nights was Manning Provincial Park. Here is our campsite:

Our campsite was near lightning lake. At the head of the lake was this really cool bridge.
The next morning we took a hike around the lake. The views were pretty spectacular.
Near the recreation area of the lake we saw a ton of ground squirrels. Here is Stephanie in her attempt to make friends with the little guys.
Later in the evening we went across the highway from our campsite to check out a lookout that we had seen on the park map. The view was pretty awesome to say the least.
Stephanie points out the lake that our campsite was next to:
One of the cooler/funnier things about camping at Manning was the programs that the rangers put on. We saw one on the schedule that we needed to check out: A deal or no deal spoof called "Real or Not Real". It was pretty funny for about 10 minutes, then we ditched out.
We opted to instead play Phase 10 back at camp while drinking hot chocolate. Excellent choice.

Overall, our time in Manning was great. It was a little chilly considering that we were higher up in the mountains, but the scenery was quite remarkable.