Camping!

We did it! We went camping! We went up to the San Bernardino National Forest with our friends the Garvins, and we stayed the whole time, did not come home early due to wind or weather, and had a great time!

The night before we left I spent a good two hours repairing the damage done to the tent by our Joshua Tree experience. We knew about one big rip but when I looked it over I found two smaller ones that also needed some work.

Proof that a) Jeff and I can still pitch a tent and b) my tent repairing skillz were holding up well! Adam was fairly amazed that we could still do it, after our last disastrous experience. The first night we were there he must have said to me at least five times 'I can't believe we've survived this far.'

Our campsite was beautiful. There were lizards sunning themselves just about everywhere you looked, which the children loved. We shared our spot with chipmunks, squirrels, woodpeckers, and lots and lots of bluejays. I had never seen bluejays before, and it was quite something to see flashes of brilliant blue as they swooped through the trees. But man, those things are raucous. Nicholas spent a lot of his time peering into the bushes and saying 'Ssshh! Ssshh!' while Kate developed a spot-on bluejay impression. She says they say 'FRAAARRK! FRAAARRK!' which indeed they do.

Hiking the trails... Kate was quite concerned about picking up firewood everywhere she went.

Nicholas didn't do much hiking, but he was carried around in style by Jeff. 

On our second day there, I tried to put Nicholas down for a nap in the tent, and quickly discovered that putting his bed next to the tent window was maybe not such a good idea. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world to see his brother pop up in the window and was laughing hysterically for ages.

It wasn't until Adam was forcibly dragged out of camp on an ice-supply run that Nicholas settled down at all!

One of the highlights of camping is always the campfire. Kate particularly loved the fire, and for the first couple of days after we got back rejected all offers of meals because they hadn't been cooked on the campfire. I had to persuade her to eat whatever it was, and she kept asking to 'go back to camping'.

All the girls!

 We will count this trip as a success!