Family Camping Trip...

In June, we made plans to go on a family camping trip with three other families from church.  You'd think that in June, you could count on sunny weather.  But not here in the Pacific Northwest!

The weather report said showers and we almost chickened out...but then went anyways!  We set off on Saturday afternoon.

Then we stopped at a Mexican place for dinner since we didn't feel like doing camp cooking that night.  The America's Cup happened to be on and the kids got front row seats.  Actually it's a small restaurant and it was the only table large enough to accommodate our family.

After another hour of driving, we made it to the site and set up camp.

When it started getting dark, we started a fire and roasted marshmallows.  No rain yet!

We're not sure how many marshmallows Gabey ate but it was a lot.

And they went to bed pretty late that night.  It was going to be fairly chilly at night so we bundled them up.

As predicted, Xiao Yu was the earliest to rise.  Although the sun came up at around 6:00am and he didn't get up till 7:00am, so it wasn't too bad.  Nevertheless, everyone else was still asleep so Elvin whisked him off and they went out for a walk.

During the walk, Elvin ran into another camper who had heard Elvin say Xiao Yu's name.  She turned to him out of the blue and asked, "Is his name 'Little Fish' in Chinese?"  ("Xiao Yu", if pronounced a certain way with the tones, can sound just like the words for "little fish" in Chinese.)  It turned out that this woman (who was Caucasian) had lived in China as a teacher at an international school for several years and also spoke Chinese.

We found a snail while walking around.

Then it was time for breakfast...what was on the menu?  Eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls.

Our boys enjoyed playing with the other little boy we shared a site with.  He is about the same age as Gabe.  They enjoyed making dinosaur noises at each other.

There was a playground at the campsite, which I always thought was kind of weird.  Until I had kids...

They were content to play and climb and play some more...

There was a little creek on one side of the campsite which was really pretty to look at.

Elvin took Xiao Yu and some of the other kids fishing there.

Elvin got a new backpacking fishing rod and reel, which means that it's really small--only about 36" long and telescopes to about the size of a fat pen.  He used this to cast a lure across the creek and before he knew it, had a little fish on.  Elvin passed the rod on Xiao Yu, who had to learn, real quick, how to reel in a fish.  And he did it! 

Here is his first fish ever!  It was a VERY memorable experience for him as periodically he will retell how it all unfolded in his special way, which means that there is a lot of acting out how he was cranking the handle of the reel.

Later, the other kids joined in even though it started to pour rain.  But unfortunately, we didn't catch anything else.

The rain stopped after a while and in the evening, we made another campfire.

And roasted hot dogs for dinner...

And when it got cooler, stayed by the fire to keep warm.

The kids congregated around the lantern to watch one of the older boys fold origami.  The neat thing about this trip is that there were 12 kids total with ages ranging from 13 to 1, and they all played really well together.  The older kids involved the younger kids in games and activities, and everyone had fun.

The next morning Xiao Yu was up early again!  

So Elvin took him to the swings.

We brought bicycles, which the kids really enjoyed riding.

Here are some of Karina's little friends.

And then it was time to break camp...

But before leaving, we *tried* to have the kids take a group picture.   Two boys, including Gabey, were trying to boycott this.  You can see them on either side of the photo below.

Before leaving, we tried our luck at the creek one more time...

And then munched on some lunch before hitting the road.

And when we got back, Elvin had to unpack our tent to dry it out.  The girls also got out to clean, wash, and shine their bicycles.  It was pretty funny to see them wash their bikes so carefully.

And that was our trip!  We hope to go camping a couple more times this summer!