Memorial Day Morning

Breakfast on the lake? Early morning wake up call for the teens? What better way to spend a holiday? Well, don't ask the older boys, because I can imagine they have a different answer than their parents do.

 

Summer Week 11 (Paradise Point, Naches Peak Loop, Millersylvania, school prep)

Sunday

Our last full week of summer before school was a fun one. We began with a camping trip with Rachel and Mom (but no Jason - apparently he has this "job" thing so he can't drop everything last minute?) as Rachel's birthday party/going away party. She's headed across the pond for a year in Deutschland. 

On her actual birthday Mom made the phenomenal toilet paper cake, so we stuck with simple s'mores for our campout. Rachel showed us a trick of shoving a piece of chocolate inside the marshmallow before putting it over the fire. She appeared to be happy with the results. 

I can't eat graham crackers and normally don't like marshmallows (how are they food???), but this did look pretty good.

After stuffing ourselves with food, some of us decided to check out the trails in the park. Descriptions online said there was a 1 mile trail so we thought it would be easy.  However, descriptions online did not have an accurate map of the trail(s) so Mom, Isaac, and Michael headed back in frustration while Ben, Rachel and I pushed on.

It turned out to be kind of an interesting trail that paralleled the river.

It also turned out to be 1 mile one way and we started the hike later in the evening. Luckily, we brought a headlamp and made it safely to the end and back to the campsite. Also luckily, Isaac didn't have to poop while we were gone as I am not sure Mom would have appreciated taking him on that adventure in the camp bathrooms.

Monday

This was a new campsite for us and it seemed quite full Sunday night. Luckily, it cleared out Monday morning. We reserved two campsites - one for tents and one with a yurt. Mom's idea of camping involves a hotel room, but we did manage to pique her interest when we told her about the yurts at the state parks. Josh and Michael were more than happy to sacrifice and stay in the yurt with her (sleeps 4), especially when they found out that there was a heater and electrical outlet. So Ben, Isaac and I stayed in the big tent (Ben got to sleep on Jason's cot - win!). Rachel also opted for tent sleeping as she hasn't had a chance to camp this summer.

 This kid is a pretty big fan of camping. 

These kids take about 12 hours to wake up in the morning.

In a first for us, this park had a volleyball net and large field to play in. Since Rachel and Michael were going to be in the same place at the same time, I had brought the volleyball. Rachel and the older boys were happy to spend the morning playing while we waited for the clouds to burn off so we could go to the beach.

Isaac, on the other hand, was devastated and VERY cranky about the fact that he couldn't play with them. Not that they had said that he couldn't, but it became incredibly obvious within minutes that he was never going to get to hit the ball and could possibly get trampled. To soothe his outer beast, I gave him my camera and made him the sports photographer.

When volleyball became boring, they moved on to monkey-in-the-middle frisbee.

This game got a little intense.

Eventually everyone was hungry and thirsty, we we returned to our campsite for water and lunch. By about 2pm we figured it was warm enough to get in the water, so we packed up the kayaks and drove to the "beach".

On some positive notes: the water was not frigid, the river was very slow, the river was quite shallow (at low tide), and the sand was great to walk on.

We had three kayaks and Ben decided to hitch a ride on the back of Michael's and Rachel's. At one point he walked down the river to catch up with them. It was crazy shallow.

By the time Rachel and the older boys got back from their kayak adventure, I had managed to quickly evacuate our spot on what was actually a sandbar (oops!) and relocate all our gear to higher ground. The boys stayed there with snacks while Rachel and I went down the river for a bit. Then we all worked up a sweat drying the kayaks and packing them back up so we could head back to start a fire and make dinner.

Tuesday

WE FINALLY BROKE THE CURSE! For the previous FIVE camping trips it RAINED on the second night. It takes for-ev-er to take down three tents when you have to dry off three rain covers, three tents, and three tarps. It makes the minions very cranky. Especially because we then have to put everything back up at home to dry off and then pack it all up AGAIN.

But Tuesday morning arrived dry after a dry night and we managed to pack up in record time. I had forgotten that it doesn't have to be torture! Of course, the yurt was even easier: they packed up their gear and just swept the floor. Done! The kids are now huge fans of yurts.

We took a few pictures to commemorate our adventure with Rachel before she leaves.

Thursday

Wednesday was a rough day with the minions so I texted a friend to see if she wanted to go hiking before I lost my ever-loving mind. Luckily she said YES! Naches Peak was on my list for the summer, but I just couldn't handle the thought of another mentally and emotionally exhausting day with my recalcitrant hikers. This was a much better way to go.

We missed the peak for the flowers, but we also missed the peak of the traffic as the crazy masses crowded this hike earlier in the summer.

Why are mountain lakes so much prettier than other lakes? Am I just biased?

It was not a great time of day for pictures, but the views of Rainier are stunning on this hike.

In the end, we didn't hike in crazy heat (my husband's concern) and we finished the hike well before dark (her husband's concern) and we had a great time.

Saturday

This next little while is going to be filled with lasts! This was our last Saturday morning walk with Rachel. We headed over to Millersylvania just to mix things up a bit. I think we got 4.5ish miles in.

Then we met up with the head of our walking group to get our participant medals. You get one after you've done 10 jog-or-nots with the group. This has been Ben's motivation from the start, but we had to wait a while to actually get the medals. Thanks, Covid!

I don't know what Rachel did for the rest of her Saturday, but I know what we did. The boys worked on their chores while Jason and I made big messes so we could reorganize the house for remote continuous learning 2.0. Josh and Michael already have decent learning spaces, but we've been slowly accruing items to get desks etc ready for Ben and Isaac. It took hours, but I promise the table no longer looks like this.

Ben is almost set. I think Jason added a couple of things (light etc) after I took this picture, but Ben seems happy with the space. I am sure it will up with other things as the year goes along.

This is the start of Isaac's space (formally where the big beast of a desk we had stood). I'm waiting to see what materials his teachers provide before adding to much stuff. He doesn't actually start until the 14th, so we have more time.

Big events coming soon with school starting and Rachel leaving. Guess we're going to have to figure out a new normal again.

Summer Week 9 (Lena Lake, North Cascades National Park, Lake St Clair)

Sunday

Game night was a little intense in our house this week. Our first time playing Throw, Throw Burrito ended with a Burrito Duel between Mom and Jason. It was a close game that ended with Mom winning by throwing her squishy burrito at Jason's feet before he realized what was going on.

Then we introduced Mom and Rachel to Poetry for Neaderthals which ended with Michael hitting Jason with the "No!" stick because Michael didn't like the poem Jason made with some of the winning words.

Definitely two good purchases.

Monday

I finally got to one my bucket list hikes: Lena Lake. I ditched the kids and went with my friend. We got up and left early - so much easier without the whole crew. 

It was so lovely and there's a campground that is making me reconsider my requirement that all camping comes with a bathroom.

Tuesday

Packed and ready to go on our fourth camping trip. Look at the excitement of this face. He's a teenager so you have to look deep to find the excitement.

Now look deeper still.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Never mind. It's probably not really there.

This trip was a drive. About 3.5 hours. After which I was so blurry that I thought this was real snow. In August. When it had been 100 degrees the week before. 

After a late start and a long drive, we got all situated and dinner started.

Jason helped pass the time by telling the boys about a new sci-fi show he found on YouTube.

With the fire ready to cook food, Jason started working on dinner. I mentioned to Isaac that I have pics of Jason's bum from all our camping trips when he cooks, so Isaac jumped up to highlight the important part of this picture.

We picked this campground because it was close to the river (Skagit). Ben, Isaac, and I skipped out on cleaning up dinner went to go check it out on our first evening.

Then it was time to see if the ancient emergency light sticks in the car work.

Spoilers: they work. 

Wednesday

I was surrounded by sleepy heads, so I went on a hike while everyone else worked on waking up. The rest of the campground must have been on the same schedule as Jason and the boys because I only saw one other person.

After my hike and breakfast, we piled into the car and down highway 20 to see Gorge Lake. 

I used to think it was cheating a little to digitally alter pictures, but I have to admit that this picture doesn't do the color of this lake justice.

A few pictures later and we went on to Diablo Lake. Gorgeous.

Gorgeous. A park ranger gave me the tip that we should stick to on particular arm of the lake that usually remained calm while the main part of the lake would be too choppy for our inflatable kayaks. The location was perfect and the kayaking was so much fun.

Also a great area for Isaac to splash around in the frigid waters. 

We all took turns. We even put Isaac in a kayak and had Jason tow him around a little bit.

When we'd had our fill of sunshine (more than our fill in one case) and were pretty sure that Michael had burned the top of his feet (luckily he didn't), we packed up the kayaks and drove over to the stunning, but windy, Diablo Lake Overlook.

Afterwards we had to take a little drive to find firewood (that's been a thing this year, thanks Covid!) and then back to camp for dinner and another light show.

And once AGAIN, night two of our camping trip it RAINED. That pretty much killed my plans for an early morning hike. The fact that it CONTINUED to rain killed my plans for a mid-morning hike. Josh, Ben and I did walk to the visitors center to get some souvenirs and have a ranger tell us that the forecast called for rain all day. 

Sigh.

So we did the River Trail and went back to help take down camp.

It was a good thing we did because check-out time was 12:00p and we pulled out of the campsite at 11:58a. 

And back on the road. 

Saturday

Ben and I spent the afternoon with some friends kayaking at Lake St Clair. It's nearby but we'd never been before. The sun came out to play after spending the morning hiding and we had a lovely time exploring. Well, I had a lovely time and Ben enjoyed being dragged behind me. That was a good arm workout!