"You are down by ONE, Boy!" ~ The Genie from the movie Aladdin

We are down a kid. The ward had a campout tonight and we did go, but we didn't stay to camp. We thought about it and were planning on it, but this week got all crazy. Ryan's car had problems and was out of commission for a couple of days, which took extra time to fix and now Ryan feels like he's behind on the weekend even though it's barely started. Plus, he never had time to get the camping stuff out and we hadn't figured out what to do with the dog... so, we just went for the evening festivities, had fun, stayed late, and then came home. It's local though, on a ward member's property, and it was a lot of fun while we were there! I hope we do it again next year because I think everyone had a great time. We would even stay next time. lol

Acadia did stay, however. Our neighbors invited her to stay with them in their tent trailer. It's the perfect night to camp - cool enough that you want to have a campfire and get all snug in your sleeping bag, but not so cold that it's unpleasant. After a couple of days with cloudy/rainy weather, today was clear and the night sky was mostly clear so you could see some stars. I'm sure she'll have fun staying up late, roasting more marshmallows, and giggling with her friends. I'll enjoy sleeping in my comfy bed. :)

I've got some major catching up to do!

I suppose I will post in order of events that I need to catch up on.  First, I will quickly go back and revisit our camping trip to Ft. Bragg.  I made this montage from some of the pics we took.  I'm sorry the YouTube quality is lame. :S



***Note: Sound was disabled because the song is copyrited. :S

Going to Hell

We got a call from some friends today who are interested in a last minute camping trip. They are in Pocatello, ID. We're in Vancouver, WA. The halfway point... Hell's Canyon. None of us have been there before so we're checking out some info and are planning on going next weekend as a last fling before school starts.

And to think, I just got the car thoroughly washed and vacuumed TWO DAYS ago and only JUST TODAY finished the laundry (sleeping bags and coats) from last week. If I had known... I would have held off on most of that. But hey, that's life. And that's what you get when you try to do something spontaneously. It should be fun though! :)

Day Five

Our last full day of camping.  Debi had to leave a little after breakfast and before she left, we took some group photos. 









Oh but we forgot to include our little forest neighbors who camped with us, ate with us, hung out in our cars...  Yeah, these guys:



Cute, yes.  But pests for sure.  It was entertaining to watch Joe chase them away from our cooking area on occasion.  And it was exciting to try to get one out of Ruth's minivan.  But we had no problem leaving these guys at the campground when we left on Saturday! lol

After Debi left, we headed down to MacKerricker beach to watch the waves and play on the rocks/beach.















Notice the seals on the rocks behind the kids?  We watched some of them playing in the waves, too.  Cute!













We decided to walk up the beach a little ways.  Some of us took the high road:





While others took the low road:





There were some people flying kites there.  They let the kids fly one and even gave one to Jared!







There was some other excitement going on around this time, too.  I don't have the video of it yet, that is on David's camera, but I can give you the run down.  Cadi was down by the waves and lost a flip flop.  She started to go after it, but incase you couldn't tell from the pics, this is NOT a beach where you can go into the water!  She was about a foot away from it, but a huge wave was about to crash on her and she had to make a quick decision.  At the last moment, she chose to live, at the encouragement of Ryan and Tom who were yelling at her to come back!  While, she was glad to be alive, and I think she realizes that it was the best deicision, she was absolutely crushed to have lost her "favorite flip flop".  That would explain this photo:



I'm just glad that she lost it at the end of our trip and not the beginning since we were wearing our flip flops into the showers. ;)

After lunch, David and Teresa took Cadi and Esther to see Glass Beach.  Rori and Jared were napping and the rest of us were being lazy, so we hung out at camp and played Phase 10.  Ruth was ahead the entire time, until Ryan swept in at the last moment and won it!  He's such a meanie.  So much for being a gentleman. ;)  It was fun though!

After the Glass Beach group came back and the little kids woke up, we went back to MacKerricker Beach to check out the tide pools since the tide was on it's way out.  We drove over to the end of the beach and walked out to the pointe where there are tons of rocks and tide pools.





















We found some really cool stuff!  Like these two crabs fighting:



These starfish:






Tom showing the kids a hermit crab:












And then it was back to camp for dinner.  All of the siblings not living at home took turns being in charge of meals.  The other three boys contributed by helping with clean up.  Here is the dish crew at work, they did a great job:





And then we had our final campfire, with lots of S'mores and Wiifms:




I was sad it was our last night, we had such a great week together!  We definitely want to go camping together again! :)