We surprised the kiddos on their last day of school by picking them up, camper and kayaks in tow, and heading out for our first camping trip of the summer! The look on their faces was priceless!
The weather wasn't exactly stellar summer camping weather, but that was just fine with us. No swimming this go around, but still lots of fun in the kayaks and fishing....so kids felt like they were't cheated too much out of water fun. 60*, partly sunny half the time, and overcast the rest of the time, called for pants and sweatshirts and tons of time spent around the camp fire. Having spent years camping in the PNW, this was nothing new to us, and in fact we all agreed that we are pretty much spoiled with the awesome camping weather this side of the Cascades. So this fluke in perfect camping weather was welcomed. We even got so lucky as to experience our first thunderstorm while camping! The kids thought that was amazing! For a few hours, off and on, it lightly rained with huge thunderboomers and lightening. Super fun!!
Taco salad, Tim's famous ants on a log, and Sam's homemade pico de gayo were also great camping hits. The kids had a lot of fun roasting their own hot dogs over the fire this year, and all of them perfected the art of hobo sandwich making.
We were excited when we stepped out of the camper one morning and Grandma Cathy drove up! It was nice to have her visit for a couple hours and share a camping breakfast with us!
Timothy Lake is great for hiking! It's 13 miles around the whole thing. One of these days Sam and I will go camp by ourselves and do that hike. In the mean time, we took a nice little hike with the kids, about 4 miles round trip, to check out the other neighboring camp grounds. I love how you can go from deep wooded tree cover, to open sky and water front, up an embankment with spectacular views of the lake, back down to water level. Lots to love about hiking around the lake. I really enjoyed that time with the family....except for the near heart attacks caused by Anthony deciding he's going to be a tree climber.
Fishing is always a must-do while we are camping. No fish this year, but all the kids worked on their casting skills and are getting pretty dang good! Even Timothy!
While out on our hike, Anthony found a large piece of bark and a whole bunch of feathers, and crafted himself a boat! He was so proud of that work, he carried it the whole two miles back to camp!
The kids were really great helpers....most of the time, haha! Anth was the honorary wood chopper, making sure we had plenty of kindling for our many fires. Molly was a big help with breakfast and general food preparation. And all the kids took turns helping to start the camp fire and tending it. By tending to it, I mean playing with it....with sticks.....which I'm never stoked about....but no one fell in, got injured, or died. And we only yelled about 100 times about messing with the fire, not 200 times, so I guess that's a good thing. Thanks little helpers!
I think, other than swimming, kayaking is the kids' favorite thing to do while camping. We are so lucky to have our kayaks and the perfect place to do it. They are all getting really good at kayaking on their own, but because we only have 3, Mols and Tim have to ride with Mama and Papa if we all want to go out. Despite the off and on overcast weather we got this trip, we couldn't have asked for more perfect weather when we took the kayaks out! The sun was shining and the water was so still and clear. It was glorious!
Other than the sadness over not having friends camp with us this go-around, the kids dubbed this trip the "best camping trip ever!" Despite not being able to swim, I think the awesome thunderstorm, the Craft Time where the kids built small scale mock shelters, as well as the Campfire Chat we went to where we learned about birds of prey, made up for no swimming, and added in that little bit of extra fun.
Yay.
See you again real soon, Timothy Lake!
With love,
Mama Hauck
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