Andros Family Camping Trip 2012

Two weekends ago (July 18-21), we met Ben's family (2 sisters and their families, a brother and his parents) up at Mt. Rainier to go camping for an extended weekend. We camped at Ohanapecosh, our favorite Mt. Rainier camping spot.

The kids were so excited about this weekend. They absolutely love camping and we haven't gone on a real camping trip since the summer of 2010.

The twins reached a big milestone this weekend- camping was the first time that they had not slept in cribs/pack n'plays before. Seeing how they are nearing three years old (gasp!), and limited on space in the car for all of our gear, we decided to forego bringing their pack and plays and just let them sleep in sleeping bags with the big kids. I had confidence in them, but was still a bit nervous.

But they were so excited! Lexi shows her "excited" eyes. It was so cute to see them just like the big kids. Lexi snuggled right up to Chloe and as you can see, held her hand while they prepared for sleep. So cute.

And it was a success! The twins slept fantastically. They never woke up in the night any of the three nights and had no problem falling asleep outside of a crib.

This was one of my best camping trips, too. I make it no secret that I despise sleeping on the ground. There is nothing fun about being brutally uncomfortable for 8 hours and getting no sleep (or painful sleep), and then wake up sore the next day. While camping I have slept on slanted ground, on top of rocks (which feel like boulders after an hour in the middle of the night), and even without rocks the ground by itself is miserably hard. So camping has never really been my favorite thing for that reason. But this year was different. I forgot to get a picture of it, but this Spring we bought me a camping cot. And not just any cot- an extra large cot- Cabela's finest. And it was amazing. We are not big on air mattresses while camping (Ben particularly dislikes them, actually) and I do have to admit that cots are nice because you don't have to blow them up- no prep work needed to set them up or take them down. It was the best camping sleep I have ever had. The extra large cot allowed me plenty of room to roll over in the night without fear of falling off. The kids would climb in bed with me in the morning when they woke up to snuggle and there was ample room for them and myself on the cot at the same time. Ahh, cots- I pledge my allegiance to you. (Ben also slept on a cot for the first time as well. We figured with just having had back surgery in January and his chronic back problems all his life that it was probably time he stopped sleeping on the hard ground as well).

The hammock set up in camp was a favorite among all the kids. It almost always had someone in it.

We love hammocks! These are from Ben's mission to El Salvador. Those people know how to make some great hammocks, I'll tell you what. Those are among our most prized possessions.

Camping is fun, but always more fun with cousins!

We got up to camp on Wednesday night, the 18th. Thursday dawned sunny skies and was a gorgeous day. We headed out on a hike to some water falls. Lexi was a great traveler.

The picture is blurry, but you can still tell that Leah wasn't super happy. She first wanted me to carry her, then Ben. Then she just wanted to get down and walk.

The falls were beautiful (hiking with a few whiney kids was not... Mitch got tired on the way back and cried the entire 1.3 miles back to camp).

Later that afternoon, we drove to a nice spot to let the kids throw rocks in the river. A group shot before leaving.

It started raining Thursday night and poured rain all. night. long. It was so loud that it woke me up numerous times. And the lightning and thunder storm was something else. Luckily, the kids slept through it all (amazing).

These pictures don't really do it justice, but we woke up to a sopping wet mess on Friday morning. And it was still raining- hard.

We had to put up this tarp over the camp stove to make breakfast.

After breakfast, the adults all got together to make a plan. How in the world were we going to keep 11 kids entertained in tents all day, waiting for the storm to let up?

The iPad worked for a little while.

So wet! It was yucky. We finally decided to make a day trip to our house in Auburn and spend the day there. It is just over an hour trip to get there and we much preferred to wait out the storm in a house then in damp tents with nothing to do.

The kids played outside for a few hours on bikes, then we headed to Costco Business store. The Andros' love Costco. Costco Business is a slightly different Costco and we love going there as well.

Leah insisted on bringing her sun glasses shopping.

It was my and Ben's turn for dinner that night, so it worked out great for us to just cook it at the house. Then Aunt Meredith and Uncle Dave made s'mores in the oven for dessert.

They were well received.

Yummy!

By the time we got back to camp at 9 pm, the rain had stopped (thankfully). We were bummed to be rained out for an entire day, but we all had a great time in Auburn, too. Just being together is fun, no matter what we're doing.

Saturday brought more sun- what a relief!

Feeding time at the zoo

This little boy was the camp sweetheart. It's always fun to have a baby around, especially one this cute and sweet.

Dave was God of Fire this weekend. He faithfully made us a fire whenever we wanted one. He even made one with damp wood.

The three big boys are all at the age where they are super interested in fire. They would sit around the fire for an hour or more at a time, poking sticks into it and seeing how much garbage they could throw in and watch melt. My son (unfortunately) seemed to be the most obsessed with the fire, and also the most unaware (or least cautious) of the danger of fire. I tried to give many lessons on how dangerous fire is but instead of scaring him straight it seemed to make him even more curious. I feel sorry for his future Scout leaders already.

Poor Leah- while Ben was backpacking with her on Thursday, he bent down to help Mitch with something and didn't notice that he was walking Leah right into a tree branch. It scraped up the side of her face. This bandaid isn't doing anything but giving her a false sense of comfort. My kids are addicted to bandaids, but they seem to have the magical touch of taking pain away.

She spent the rest of the weekend being referred to as "Scar." But she can still smile about it.

Everyone loves sitting by Papa!

The little kids (minus baby Preston). Two 2 year olds and three 3 year olds.

After breaking camp and loading up the cars, we drove into Mt Rainier National park and went on our favorite hike to the Grove of the Patriarchs. It's a super kid friendly hike and we love it. The kids all love crossing this bridge. It's super shaky and bouncy.

All eleven grand kids- next year there will be 12! Ben's sister Meredith is expecting her 4th baby next January.

Nana and Papa with the kids

All the adults with the kids!

A shot of both sets of twins by the twin trees.

My twins by the twin trees.

We now have enough people to make it all around this big tree!

Nick and Ben having fun.

Look- one legged!

We found another place by the river to let the kids play. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and the kids couldn't resist getting in the water. We had many toddlers running around without pants and every kid had their shoes off.

Lex liked throwing rocks with Uncle Nick.

After this hike, we all loaded in our cars and headed home. The weekend went by much too fast. We had such a great time- even the rainy day was a fun memory. Camping is exhausting, no doubt. It's a lot of work to plan and pack for it and it's a mess cleaning up when you get home. I had to do multiple loads of dirty, smokey clothes that night and my poor van had to be vacuumed and scrubbed top to bottom to be cleansed again. All worth it.