We planned one camping trip for this summer. We feel like it's about all we can handle at this stage of our parenting/children's lives. Our destination, Crescent Beach, Port Angeles. Our party: Us, the Hildebrandts, and the Toler/Wrights.
We left the house a little before 10am, and opted to take the longer route down to Tacoma and back up to Hood Canal, rather than cross Puget Sound on a ferry. We made one stop for lunch at Fat Smitty's in Chimacum. We got there just in time, because soon after us came many more people. It was pretty decent diner food, and quick. They have one dollar bills hanging all over the whole restaurant.
After lunch, the boys fell asleep in the car for the remainder of the drive. It gave them about an hour's worth of a nap. Not too bad.
We were the first to arrive in our party. David set up the tent while I took the boys down to the beach to do a little exploring.
Absolutely gorgeous view. The land you see over yonder is Canada, and the water between us is the Strait of San Juan de Fuca.
After David got the tents set up, we headed back down to the beach to fly our kite, and do a little more exploring.
The boys and I were popping these bull kelp bubbles.
Everyone has arrived, and camp is all set up. That's our giant red tent.
It was actually a little bit of a stressful start to the trip. The kids were all over stimulated, ours and the others'. They were happy to be running around together, but the younger ones were getting a bit loopy. We wanted to get them fed and into bed as soon as we could, but that was quite challenging, as you can imagine.
For dinner, we had 'Hobo Dinners.' Basically, it's like a decomposed meatloaf. Each person gets to build their own. You take a piece of foil, put ground beef in the middle, then top it with veggies, season it up, wrap it up, and throw it right into the fire to cook. David was our cooker, and did a great job. We also had asparagus that we wrapped in foil and threw into the fire.
Soon after dinner, there were also s'mores and birthday cake for Bond, who turned 7 today! Vincent & Tyler missed out on the cake, but had plenty of marshmallows. Again, bedtime was challenging.
We had the kids into the tent and in their beds by about 8pm or so. I don't think they actually fell asleep until past 9pm. They were just having so much fun, even away from the other kids, in the tent together. Our sleeping arrangement: Tyler in a pack 'n' play, Vincent in his toddler blow up mattress with sleeping bag, and us on our deluxe, queen sized Aerobed and sleeping bags. Ahhh yeeaaah, we don't mess around. None of that thin, narrow sleeping pad on the ground. We are talking car camping luxury. Technically, our tent has two rooms, but we all slept in the same section. Much warmer this way, and we were able to separate our messy clothes and sandy shoes away.
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