So Steph has been talking about the family going camping for weeks on end now. “The boys need to go camping” and “it’s what families do in the summer” and so on. So, we finally took the plunge and planned our camping trip. Finding it quite difficult to reserve a camping spot (apparently we aren’t the only family with this idea), we finally found an open site in Schafer State Park above Olympia.
Preparation included numerous trips for groceries, batteries, propane, etc., and time online searching “family camping tips.” A few tips were helpful (kids will get really dirty…drop by Goodwill and buy a pair of shorts and shirt for each kid. Let them get as dirty as you want…then toss the clothes). Other tips less useful (plan your first trip to be somewhere very close to home, at a campground designed for kids with amenities such as a playground…oops and oops).
So the packing began.
We left Kirkland as planned about 3:30 on Thursday afternoon. What was supposed to be a 2 hour drive…wasn’t. We had TERRIBLE traffic just getting out-of-town, and it was pretty terrible the whole way. Alex wet through his diaper and had to be stripped down to just his diaper for the rest of the trip (which was awkward since we had an unplanned stop for dinner since our trip was so long). Four hours later we finally found our campsite and very quickly rushed around to set up before dark.After quickly determining that our gear for our small family of four would NOT fit in the SUV, we loaded BOTH cars up:
2 coolers
1 camping container: chairs, propane, cook stove, lanterns, etc.
1 bag of toys
2 suitcases of clothes
1 bag containing 2 blowup twin beds
1 blow up queen bed
2 hampers stuffed with bedding: mattress pads for 3 beds, sheet sets for 3 beds, blankets and comforters for 3 beds
5 pillows (Alex got 2 to pile on his head :))
1 bin kitchen utensils: spatula, knives, wipes, plates and utensils, trash bags, hand crank can opener, etc., etc., etc.)
1 bin food: bread, chips, marshmallows, peanut butter, pancake mix, etc.
1 Tent
water, water, water
Ok, so it’s a good thing we were car camping (make that dual-car camping).
Ooops, then it hit us. We perhaps should have packed some diapers. We had 1 left and Alex needed a change. So we changed him and threw caution to the wind, literally, that we could somehow survive until morning and worry about finding a store somewhere back in the last town 30 miles or so ago …
Once we got set up and a fire going, we enjoyed the evening and got to teach the kids how to roast marshmallows and make smores, They were both exhausted (Cole couldn’t wait to go to bed. Turns out it was the “sleeping” in the tent that he defined as camping, so all the rest of it was interfering with his camp trip!). Bedtime went smoothly. Cole, as usual was a great sleeper. Alex woke a few times but was easily comforted back to sleep – even at 6am when we pulled him in to bed with us and he went back to sleep till after 9am!!
For breakfast we enjoyed fresh fruit, hash browns, and scrambled eggs. We then headed out to see what there was to see. We found the river and a beautiful sandy entry. Todd, Cole and Alex waded in the river, played with rocks and walked up the middle of the river (!!) quite a way. Cole was on cloud 9 as he had been waiting for a “big adventure!” Water was too cold for Steph, so she sat out and took pictures. Eventually everyone got hungry, so we headed back to the tent for a lunch and nap. Steph and Alex napped while Cole and Todd went on a hike around the camp ground and across the river.
That evening dinner was Friday baked beans, cottage cheese and cucumber slices, topped off with another round of smores. After dinner we made memories by singing all the campfire songs we could think of around the fire. After the kids were down, we were cleaning up and met a very noisy, very large raccoon (who apparently felt we were taking too long to clean up).Off to bed then. 
Sadly, Alex had a tough night. He woke up disoriented and got upset. Finally we pulled him in to bed with us, but he just wouldn’t settle. In the midst of rocking and singing to him we realized he was soaked through his diaper AND pajamas AND our sheets. So a midnight, lightless diaper change ensued, putting him back in his dirty clothes from the day (which were the only things dry since his other set of clothes were wet from his time in the river). He was awake for about 3 hours. Eventually we all fell asleep again (despite Todd’s ridiculously frequent potty trips).
Up again about 9am. Breakfast of eggs, hash browns, fruit and yogurt. Then the packing began. The kids got irritated with the constant “no, don’t touch that” and the “you just need to wait” and the “stop bothering him”…. we finally just put them in the car and let them watch movies while we packed. Eventually everything got back in the two cars and we headed out. The trip home was uneventful, even though the 2-hour trip stretched into 3 hours, as Cole decided to tour Tacoma and made a habit of needing to stop every 15 minutes until we made it to Federal Way for yet another potty break. We arrived home thankful for showers, soap, and grateful for the great outdoors…that we weren’t sleeping in anymore!
