Camping at Zion's Camp

This year I had the BEST. IDEA. EVER.  I reserved a camping site at Zion's Camp in Belfair for the last day of school.  I had never been, but Jason and the older boys had and it came highly recommended by them.  We packed up the van with a ridiculous amount of stuff and headed north, crossing our fingers all the while that this was going to work out with a toddler in the mix.  

Not just any toddler.  Baby Rage.

Considering that I set up the reservations in March, we were unbelievably lucky with gorgeous weather.  We arrived a little after 1pm and started setting up the tent, a one man, one woman and three boy job it turns out.  Rachel got us this tent several years ago in VA, but we didn't use it much in the sticky mid-Atlantic summers.  

We plan on making up for lost time now that we are in WA.

Then we headed straight for the lake.  This was the big attraction of the whole trip.  There were paddle boats, kayaks, canoes, paddle boards and a rope swing.

Never underestimate the power of a rope tied to a tree.

We brought an itty, bitty life jacket for this guy, but one look at the wobbly boats and he wanted nothing to do with any of that.  Instead, he made friends with the lady handing out keys for the boats and found this tool in her golf cart.  Who needs toys when there are tools to be found?

Michael and Ben practically lived on this swing.  And can you blame them?  Who doesn't enjoy flying through the air?

In the meantime, Josh spent his afternoon a little ways down the coast with his fishing rod and Aunt Rachel's tackle box.  By the time he was done, he had no fish and fewer weights.  I think it might have worked out better if he knew how to properly attach the weights and if it wasn't the hottest time of the day.

But he seemed to enjoy himself.

Eventually, our stomachs started crying out for food, so we headed back to our campsite to make dinner.  Josh was in charge of starting the fire and after a while his brothers were convinced that they were going to starve to death before Josh got the fire started.  Eventually, Jason stepped in and removed the wet tinder from the fire pit and got a nice, warm fire going.

Home sweet tent.

After dinner and playing frisbee, we settled down in the tent for games.

Then it was lights out and we tried to sleep.  Emphasis on the word tried.  Isaac was still wide awake and very excited about life in general.  He had lots of questions and kept scampering around the tent looking at things and poking me in the face.  Eventually, he passed out in my sleeping bag with me.  Jason then extracted him and our littlest guy slept through the entire night.  Hooray!!

After a breakfast of fire-toasted bagels and packing up our gear, it was back to the lake to get some more water time in before we headed home.

We seriously had a wonderful time and the boys were excited and having fun the entire time.  So much so that we've decided to make this a tradition and camp out here on the last day of school every year.