I've often told Mark, "as soon as our youngest is three, we will be a camping family."
We're not there yet, but I figure we should at least have some exposure before that point, so in August we teamed up with our good friends for a camping adventure at Mt. Rainier.
As we prepared to leave, I was reminded that camping with kids is the process by which you attempt to pack your entire house into your car.
The fact that it's been a long while since we've been camping as a family was made clear when we went to set up our tent and discovered that the strings in a few of the poles were broken. Whoops! Mark and Ben were able to figure out a workable solution (thank you duct tape!), but I think we'll be in the market for a new tent before we venture out again (no big loss, our tent was a pain to set up).
While the dads worked (in the surprisingly warm temperatures), the kids explored our fantastic campgrounds. Our side-by-side spots were enormous, and backed up to a hill with even more paths and room to play.
Finally, we got camp set up and were ready to set off for an afternoon at the Ohanapecosh river. We'd visited this river a few years ago and the water had been glacier-cold. We'd warned our friends, "you can barely even dip in your toes!"
This year was different. The water level was much lower, and while the water was cold, it was tolerable. The kids wasted no time climbing on the rocks, digging in the dirt and mud, and getting in the water.
Mark took over (non-napping) Nellie duty.
After playing at the river, we headed back to our campsite for dinner. We had prepared ahead of time to make dinner prep minimal, and it was super nice to be able to just warm up pre-made homemade macaroni and cheese and BBQ shredded pork on the campfire.
We made our camping trip official by making s'mores.
Then it was time to try to get the kids to sleep. Aubree and Mark stayed out and played games with Ashley and Ben (who are board game professionals). I took tent duty (because... Nellie). The boys did pretty well, all things considered. Nellie? Not so much.
Important note - never, never take a baby who won't sleep anywhere but her crib, camping.
Additionally, I think Nellie might be allergic to vacation. She gets a fever every. single. time. This was no exception. It was ugly.
Still, we made it to the next morning where she seemed much improved. Watching her closely, we decided to proceed with our plans, which involved hiking from our campsite 2.5 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs. We knew this 5-mile round-trip hike was slightly ambitious with our young group, but we packed a lunch and lots of snacks, and planned to take it slow and easy.
A little over a mile into the hike, we passed the beautiful Silver Springs waterfall.
Ben gave the boys lessons on skipping rocks.
Thane found a polliwog.
Soon it was time to start up again. We love the short Grove of the Patriarchs loop, but by the time we finished and were ready to start the 2 miles back to our campsite, we hit meltdown mode. Nellie had finally fallen asleep, but most of the other small ones had reached their limits. Time for Plan B, which involved Mark and Ben finishing the hike at a brisk pace and grabbing our vans to come back and pick the rest of us up at the parking lot.
The kids were pretty patient while waiting (snacks helped), which is good, because we were bummed to not be able to finish the hike.
We had a relaxed afternoon back at the campsite. I tried to get Nellie to take a nap. You can probably guess how that worked out.
Bryce brought the bow and arrows he made at cub camp, and had a great time shooting his nerf arrows all around. He was generous sharing his fun toy. Thane, however, decided he wanted his own bow and arrow, and set about making one. It totally didn't work, but still looked pretty good!
The second night in the tent was just as hard with Nellie as the first. I just kept reminding myself, "this is the last summer we will have to camp with a baby..."
The next morning we got up and packed up camp as quickly as we could (which, with nine kids running around isn't really quick at all). The goal for the day was to drive up to Paradise and do a hike up there. Our friends had been concerned about parking, but we had visited Paradise a few times previously and never had any issues, so we assured them we'd be fine. Whoops again!
Paradise was an absolute zoo! I've never seen anything like it. There wasn't even a hope to find parking. Apologizing profusely, we abandoned Paradise and turned again to Plan B - hiking Reflection Lake.
The Coberly's left hoping to get home early enough to get their brakes fixed. We decided to explore just a little bit around the lake. Our efforts were rewarded when we found the spot where the picture we have hanging on our living room wall was taken.
Dirty, stinky, and tired, we made our way home, already thinking about next year's trip...
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