I Hate Camping! (but I still go every year)!

Last weekend was our annual camping trip again!

Once again, I spent 2 days packing and 2 days unpacking, so I could sit in the dirt and smell like smoke for a day and a half!  I just don't get the whole "camping thing" at all.  So why do I keep going back every year if I hate it so much you ask?  That's easy . . . because I love my kids and my kids LOVE camping.  I also get to spend time with some of my very bestest friends (even though I think we could all have just as much fun spending time together in a luxury house in Sunriver, but that's just me).

Here I am . . . trying to act like I love camping,

Pancho and I were in charge of dinner the first night.

Notice Pancho's shirt with "baby Carlos" on it!  Ha Ha

This year's camping trip was at Suttle Lake in Central Oregon.  There were 6 families, including 11 adults and 14 kids. The Fultons, The Hakalas, The Dacars, The McCarthy's, The Cyphers, and The Browns.  We were so happy that the Cyphers could join us this year.  Dina was a very good friend of Christy, Liz and I at Linfield College.  We used to hang out with Dina and Randy all of the time when we lived in Portland.  It was so fun to catch up, and hang out with them again, as well as their daughter Delaney and son Blaine.  Liz's best friend from High school Tina Brown and her son Luke have been coming with us for a few years now as well.  It is a Super Fun group, and we often laugh so hard we have tears and stomach pains!  The bathroom situation added lots of jokes and laughs this year!!!

I have always barely been able to tolerate camping WITH flush toilets and running water!

This was a HUGE reason for my camping hatred this year

(notice that the toilet does NOT have a flusher on it!  YIKES!!!)

Oh Yes, and where do you wash your hands? yuck!

I know, I am such a wuss!

OK, so on our Girls Weekend in Vegas, we ran across these "Hangover" T-shirts at Caesars Palace.

You have to have seen the movie to think this is funny, but we all got our husbands a T-shirt.

Donnie and Doug's say "One Man Wolfpack" and Kevin's says "Tigers Love Pepper".

Pancho's has baby Carlos in a baby bijorn.  You should see the looks that he gets when he wears it!  So funny!  (Randy didn't have a shirt, but he snuck in there too)

Ethan and Lucy

I have lots of pictures of Lucy and hardly any of the boys.

That's because the boys took off running, fishing, swimming etc. the minute we got there, with all of their friends, and I hardly saw them.  Which is probably why they love camping so much . . . freedom!

Brendan, Max and Ben

rowing away from me, rarely to be seen from there on out :)

The nice thing about Suttle Lake is that it is very shallow and therefore very warm.

The kids could stand until they were quite far out in the water.

Jessica (Natalie's friend), Natalie (Christy's daughter) and Delaney (Dina's daughter)

They were just little girls, like yesterday . . . seriously, where does the time go?

 . . .the whole group (or most of it) around the campfire.

25 of us in all

roasting marshmallows and singing campfire songs

Lucy is just like me, she loves to cook marshmallows but hates to eat them.

Max started roasting mint oreos and putting chocolate between them!

Now that is my kind of smore!

Liz and I before . . .

. . . and Liz and I after!

We brought the boat and we all had so much fun being drug around the lake on this big orange tube!

I was so surprised that Lucy actually went on the tube (see her holding on for dear life), she is usually very nervous about things like that.  Ethan and Sam, on the other hand, were surfing and dancing on the thing, while it was moving pretty fast!

 

Dina (learning how to NOT paddle in a circle)

loading up the boat for another run . .

Pancho and Lu

(so cute!)

Dina and Liz (supermoms)

This is what it felt like the Mom's were doing the whole time. . . carrying everyone's towels, drinks, floaties, sunblock, snacks, coolers, oars, chairs, etc. etc. etc. from one place to another.  It's all so much work!  Once again, Sunriver anyone?

How sweet is this picture of Lucy and Liz!

I love it!

Christy, Me,  Liz and Amy

OK once we got all of the $%#t set up, it was nice to relax and chat with girls.

All in all, once I get home and get the last bit of laundry folded and put away, I do have to admit, that camping can be a little bit fun.  I always say that this is my last year and that I will never do it again, but I always end up there again the next year. Looking back, these will probably be some of our funniest and most fun memories.  I think that this was about our 8th annual camping trip, but I still hold out hope that I can change everyone's mind and move it all to a beautiful vacation home (with a flush toilet) one of these years!

The Redwood Forest and Paul Bunyan!

On the way home from San Francisco, we decided to take 101 instead of I-5 and go through the Redwood Forrest.  We stopped at this cheesy little tourist site called Trees of Mystery and took a hike and a gondola ride through the Redwood Forrest.

When you get there, the first thing that you see are these HUGE sculptures of Paul Bunyan and his Blue OX Babe.  You can see Pancho and Sam standing under them looking up!

Lucy wanted me to take this cute picture of her next to Babe's sign.  She had no idea that the boys are in the background checking out the OX's junk hanging down.

If you talked to Paul Bunyan, he would actually talk back.  If you know Pancho, you can imagine the inappropriate conversation that Pancho had with Paul Bunyan.  The whole parking lot full of people were cracking up!

This tree is actually in the Guinness Book of World Records Book that the boys have at home!

This tree was over 3000 years old.

Isn't that amazing?

This is the trunk of the 3000 year old tree!

It had tipped over.

standing in the Cathedral Tree

This is actually all one tree and many people get married here!

The sizes of these trees were amazing to me, and the kids too!

Those trees in the background were like regular sized trees we have here in Oregon. 

This one was the size of 2 cars across!

We also took a gondola ride, it was so beautiful. 

We were floating above all of these amazingly tall trees, looking down on them.

The view at the top was beautiful.

The kids in the gondola.

Pancho and I checking out the view.

a view straight up

sitting on a sculpture carved out of a redwood tree

Pancho acting like he carved this for me :)

This was the  trunk of a tree that was 2500 years old.  They put signs on the rings where different world events happened, like the crusades, the magna carta, columbus and the pilgrims.

What a fun trip through the Redwood Forrest, and very educational too.  The kids were so interested in everything, which made it really fun.  We definitely want to go back, there were so many things that we would have loved to  stop and check out, but we couldn't because we needed to get home.  We are already planning another trip!

An Evening in San Francisco!

As we pulled away from my cousin's house in San Ramon, Pancho and I were lamenting the long drive home.  We figured that if we drove stright through from there, we would arrive in Eugene at 2am.  As we started the drive, all of the sudden Pancho took a turn onto a different freeway and said. "We can't be this close to San Francisco and not take the kids there!".  So, on a whim, we took a turn and headed for San Fran instead of home!  I loved it!  It was so impulsive and unplanned!  We were having so much fun on our road trip, that we didn't want it to end!

We arrived at Fisherman's Wharf or Pier 39 at about 5pm!

I had  not packed for cold weather at all, and it was starting to get cold!

The kids were so excited to go over the Bay Bridge and see the Golden Gate Bridge (we actually got to go over the Golden Gate on our way out of town).  We all had fun looking through all of the shops at Pier 39.

Lucy didn't have a coat, but she was perfectly happy to wrap up in her blankey!

Pancho and I couldn't wait to have Chowder in a Bread Bowl . . .Yum!!!!

The boys  started eating lemon slices at dinner, their facial expressions were cracking me up!

Is that sour Max?

Sam has one in each hand, Pancho and I were suprised that he liked it, he is kind of sensitive to certain sensory things sometimes :)

The boys found an NFL store and they were in HEAVEN!

They could have stayed there for hours.  We had to drag them out.  Lucy was a little board, but she found this hat that she loved.  We bought it for her for being such a good sport.

The boys each picked out a USC sweatshirt off the sale rack.

Imagine that . . . USC sweatshirts on the sale rack?

I guess it worked out good for the boys though :).

This is a hazy picture of Alcatraz as the sun went down.  The boys were begging us to take the boat tour out there, but it was too late and we were planning on heading down the road.  We promised them that we would take them back though.

You can barely see the Sea Otters in the background, San Francisco is so beautiful at night.

I was so happy that we took this little detour, even if it was cold!

We Even Visited My Cousins!

We were so sad to miss the Fourth of July with all of my Cousins, Aunts and Uncles this year.  That's why I was so glad that Heather, Joe, Allison and Gabriella were willing to let us come visit on such short notice.  I was feeling like I would have really missed out if I didn't get to see Gabriella at all this year!

My Cousins Allison and Heather with Heather's daughter Gabriella and her husband Joe.

When we woke up at the Hotel the day after Great America, I looked at the Map App on my iphone and realized that we were only about 15 minutes away from my cousin Heather's house in San Ramon.  I decided to call up Allison (who lives in downtown San Francisco) and see if there was any way we could all meet up  that day.  As luck would have it, they were all willing to meet at Joe and Heather's to hang out with us for a little bit!

Auntie Allison and Gabriella

Gabriella is so cute!  I loved it when she would say Allison's name, (which she did a lot), she obviously loves her Aunt.  She would say "An nan nan" for Allison.

Max had won, not one, but two Lakers Basketballs at Great America the day before, he couldn't wait to find a hoop.  He was even nice enough to give one to his brother!

We had lunch at Joe and Heather's while Gabriella took a nap, then we all walked to their neighborhood Park.

Heather and Gabriella going down the slide!

Lucy, playing at the Park.

Lucy is wearing a hat in all of these pictures for two reasons, One . . . is that she was having a reaction to the face sunblock that we had, and Two is that hadn't washed her hair in more days than I care to count.  Gotta love vacation!

Pancho and Allison on the swings!

The boys helped Joe put together the Bocci Ball game, then they all played together.

Then we walked back home.

We actually got a pretty good family picture too!

Thank You again Allison, Heather and Joe for letting us come visit.  We loved seeing your beautiful home and spending time with Gabriella (and all of you too, of course).