Whew! The last two weeks have flashed by before my eyes. The better part of last week I was working on a special project, which I will get to in another post, then we went camping. This week has been camping recovery and gearing up for VBS next week. Pretty much there has been something going non-stop. No chance to even get bored around here.
We haven’t been camping since Emilie was about 4 months old and that was just a quickie overnighter en route to see my parents. Emilie slept in a cardboard box, we forgot the propane for the camp stove, and a porcupine sat in the tree next to our tent all night and…’chewed.’ Wasn’t all that great really. We’ve been saying we were going to go for the last 2 years but it just never happened. This year we said, “enough talk, more action,” picked a weekend, invited some friends (Josh & Chelsey and their kids Molly & Henry), and headed for the hills.
Our campsite was at Five Points Campground, a semi developed (meaning outhouse but no potable water) about 25 miles north of Fairfield, Idaho. Turned out to be a great choice as it was nice a quiet, there was a small kid-friendly stream alongside one of the campgrounds and it was close to a lot of things to see in the woods.
As for the friends, well they are awesome. I often worry going into the woods with people. I mean people have different definitions of what camping is. Thankfully the friends who went with us seem to have a similar laid-back attitude to camping. No sweat, sleep in a tent, let the kids get filthy, eat really good food, and have a fantastic time.
Most of the time we explored around camp, chatted, and let the kids play. We did go over to the Worswick Hot Springs for awhile and let the kids wade a bit. Not directly in the hot springs itself…that water was scalding….but just below the main pool where it mixed with a cool mountain stream is was just about perfect.
Kevin and Josh even got in some fly fishing while Chelsey and I hung around camp with the kids. It was Father’s Day weekend after all. Hanging with the kids was pretty entertaining on its own anyways. At one point we got a triple concert, three kids, singing tree different songs. Emilie even had hand motions. There was even a puppet show late in the afternoon that involved a car door and eagle and Emilie as a ‘special assistant.’ She got ‘attacked’ by the Eagle….the boys were riveted. Then they mutinied and took over the show much to the girls’ chagrin.
Should I even mention the food? Sooooo yummy. There is definitely no need to live solely off of hotdogs while you camp (though we did have that for lunch one day). We had a nacho bar, Dutch oven lasagna, pancakes, sausage hash, and lots of other yummy snacks and sides.
Other fun highlights of the weekend included. Making “non-traditional” s’mores and Molly losing a tooth in her S’more. Yes, Emilie’s double decker there includes chocolate striped shortbread cookies, a peanut butter cup, a plain marshmallow, and a strawberry flavored one….YUM! It’s hard to beat your basic s’more but these were pretty darn amazing.
There was also the hunting dogs that showed up in camp Sunday morning. Guess the bears were still in bed so a pair of them meandered into camp early checked to see if there was any food to beg for, got some pets and lovin’ from the kids, and moseyed on down to the road where their owner picked them up.
Oh, and we can’t forget the mouse. I was sitting around the campfire early one morning drinking coffee and chatting with Kevin and Josh when I caught something dark on my foot out of the corner of my eye. My initial thought was that Kevin was being a goof and poking my foot with a stick until said stick moved and it dawned on my that it was a mouse. Now, I am generally pretty calm about rodents but this one caught me off guard. My initial reaction was to shriek and shake my foot around. Startled poor Josh so much that he poured his coffee in his lap (oddly I was the one with a mouse on her shoe and didn’t spill my coffee at all…most be those supermom reflexes). The little bugger than proceeded to try and hide under a cooler than climbed in the wheel well of Josh & Chelsey’s car until Kevin scared him off. Gotta love the wildlife.
So yes, it was a FANTASTIC trip. I’d got back again in a heartbeat. In fact we’ve already been tossing around the idea a bit perhaps August or something like that. One last hurrah before school starts.
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