My handsome husband.
Searching hard for shells.
AM and two of my sisters.
Lunch at North Coast Brewing Co.
A little something that Zack found :)
Our nephew Alex freezing in the ocean.
Every year in July, our family and my sibling's families head to Fort Bragg for the weekend. We tent-camp, play at the beach and roast marshmallows by the fire. It's just a wonderful time and so many great memories are made.
This year was a little different due to the fact that several members of our family couldn't make it for various reasons. I was a little nervous about this trip knowing that my mom would not be there. She is a MASTER camper. My brother would not be there and he is the MASTER of improvising. So, I spent the last few weeks preparing. I shopped and packed and shopped and packed some more. I was sure that we had everything we needed (even if it was just a two night trip)! I bought all of our food here and packed it so that we didn't have to pay Safeway's outrageous cost for food. I was so proud of myself and seemed to have it all together! :)
I drove, which is typical for Rich and I. I don't make a great passenger...especially on windy roads. We got to camp around 8:30pm (Rich had to work that day, but we had the car packed the night before) and unloaded our car and set up the tent and food. We stayed up quite late and I finally got Zack to sleep around midnight. At 4am, I got a sweet wake-up call in the form of Zack saying (loudly), "Mommy! Ni-night! Shhhhh!" I pretended to sleep, but he had it in his mind that it was time to get up and that was that. Rich got out of the tent to head to the bathroom and found that raccoons had gotten into our cooler and had eaten all of our food, including TWO BAGS of plums. The plums must have worked their magic quickly, because they pooped all over EVERYTHING. They pooped on our picnic table, IN our cooler, all over our drinks, on our flashlight. You name it, it was poop covered. Yuck. So, at 5am, Zack and I headed to Safeway to re-purchase every ounce of the food that I so thoughtfully packed (and some Lysol kitchen cleaner). We sanitized everything and threw all of our food away and put on a new tablecloth. Whew! Oh!, and on my way back from the grocery store around 6am, I checked in at the ranger station and he informed me that we had registered for a "handicapped" site (although my printed registration said "standard") and he told me I'd have to pack up and move, although they didn't have another camp site for us to use. I offered to move to my sister's site and he said there would be too many people on the site and that wasn't an option. My sister's mother-in-law happened to have a handicapped placard and let us use it for the weekend. Whew...again! Don't think I didn't cry like a baby after the lack of sleep and stress of it all at the butt-crack of dawn though! :)
So, onto the fun part...
AM had his first experience of camping and the beach. He had a wonderful time! He did very well and we had so much fun. Zack's favorite term the entire weekend was "RUN!"...and that's precisely what he did...ALL WEEKEND. He was so busy and we chased and chased and chased. I think we need a vacation FROM our vacation! :)
All in all, it was a beautiful weekend with my family. I did miss my bed, but I love sleeping outside.
This year was a little different due to the fact that several members of our family couldn't make it for various reasons. I was a little nervous about this trip knowing that my mom would not be there. She is a MASTER camper. My brother would not be there and he is the MASTER of improvising. So, I spent the last few weeks preparing. I shopped and packed and shopped and packed some more. I was sure that we had everything we needed (even if it was just a two night trip)! I bought all of our food here and packed it so that we didn't have to pay Safeway's outrageous cost for food. I was so proud of myself and seemed to have it all together! :)
I drove, which is typical for Rich and I. I don't make a great passenger...especially on windy roads. We got to camp around 8:30pm (Rich had to work that day, but we had the car packed the night before) and unloaded our car and set up the tent and food. We stayed up quite late and I finally got Zack to sleep around midnight. At 4am, I got a sweet wake-up call in the form of Zack saying (loudly), "Mommy! Ni-night! Shhhhh!" I pretended to sleep, but he had it in his mind that it was time to get up and that was that. Rich got out of the tent to head to the bathroom and found that raccoons had gotten into our cooler and had eaten all of our food, including TWO BAGS of plums. The plums must have worked their magic quickly, because they pooped all over EVERYTHING. They pooped on our picnic table, IN our cooler, all over our drinks, on our flashlight. You name it, it was poop covered. Yuck. So, at 5am, Zack and I headed to Safeway to re-purchase every ounce of the food that I so thoughtfully packed (and some Lysol kitchen cleaner). We sanitized everything and threw all of our food away and put on a new tablecloth. Whew! Oh!, and on my way back from the grocery store around 6am, I checked in at the ranger station and he informed me that we had registered for a "handicapped" site (although my printed registration said "standard") and he told me I'd have to pack up and move, although they didn't have another camp site for us to use. I offered to move to my sister's site and he said there would be too many people on the site and that wasn't an option. My sister's mother-in-law happened to have a handicapped placard and let us use it for the weekend. Whew...again! Don't think I didn't cry like a baby after the lack of sleep and stress of it all at the butt-crack of dawn though! :)
So, onto the fun part...
AM had his first experience of camping and the beach. He had a wonderful time! He did very well and we had so much fun. Zack's favorite term the entire weekend was "RUN!"...and that's precisely what he did...ALL WEEKEND. He was so busy and we chased and chased and chased. I think we need a vacation FROM our vacation! :)
All in all, it was a beautiful weekend with my family. I did miss my bed, but I love sleeping outside.
1 comment:
I am so glad that you guys had such a great time. The pictures are amazing! You and I should go out on a photo excursion sometime! :)
Can't wait to watch the kiddos on Friday!!!
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