Family Camping

We got to go on a family camping trip last weekend and enjoyed some time relaxing in the mountains. It was beautiful. The area we camped was a place I had never been to, but it was about 6,000 ft and all the familiar friends were there, White Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Incense Cedar, Giant Sequoia, and Dogwood, so we felt right at home.  We arrived Friday afternoon and set up camp. Evan worked on starting a fire from the embers of the fire Jonah and Michelle had that morning (they went up a day earlier). They ended up not quite being hot enough, but we got out the lighter and soon had a great fire going.

We had divided into two cooking teams and split up the meal/clean up responsibilities. Heather made a menu to keep us all on track, and so we could look forward to all the good food planned for the weekend. It was pretty chilly, so we spent a lot of time around the fire, which was great.

After a leisurely start to Saturday eating breakfast around the fire, Joshua, Mom, and I went on a walk around the lake by our campsite.  

We ended up without a trail and did a little bushwhacking. 

We finally got to set up our hammock! I have been wanting to put it up for months, but there is no where to use it at the apartment. We weren't the only ones glad to have it at our campsite.

The afternoon activity was trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together. We got some heat and maybe a little smoke, but no fire.

Evan and Micah were working with the embers again and had a little more success. They got it lit a few times, but didn't have enough breath to keep it going. Micah was a little trooper and just kept blowing and blowing on their little pile. I grabbed a frisbee and they added more little twigs and we finally got it going. It was tiring work.

Joshua and I were on a team with the Nickells for meals. Saturday night we had a birthday dinner for Michelle and made stick steaks, rice pilaf, green bean salad, and lavender lemonade. I brought a special plastic flute for the birthday girl.

I had made a cheesecake for dessert and Heather added candles. It was hard to get them all lit at once.

The next morning, the Chandler/Trevino crew made sausage, pumpkin pancakes, and buttermilk pancakes for breakfast.

I finally succeeded in messing up Micah's hair.

After breakfast, we packed everything up, then took a couple group pictures. Isaac wasn't feeling well, so in the second picture we are all pretending to throw up. Nothing like a little sympathy from your family.