Family Camp

We did something brave this summer. We went camping. As in sleeping bags, fabric for walls, and all four of us slumbering within arms reach of one another. Call us crazy but we decided that it was time to trade in our traditional 4th of July celebration up at Lake Roesiger (which we've been doing since high school) for the craziness of our church's family camp hosted in Eastern Washington.
For our first attempt at camping with children it seemed a safe bet. We'd be surrounded by our good friends, two of the three meals every day would be provided by the church, and there would be a plethora of fun activities to partake in every day. We simply had to pack an extra bit of patience for the tired little people we would have on our hands due to lack of naps and hope that their exhaustion would encourage deep sleep at night (cross my fingers).

We arrived to family camp on the 4th just in the nick of time to decorate Owen's scooter and link up with all the other kids for their little parade.

Within a few moments of the parade's end, Jesse decided that all this scooter business looked like a lot of fun and so began his efforts to master Owen's scooter. He's going to be the death of me I swear. 

 Later we headed off to Slide Waters, a little water park in Chelan. I wish we had something like this in the Seattle area besides the monstrosity that is Wild Waves. Sure there were still a million people at Slide Waters but 90% of the slides Owen could do either by himself or simply sitting in between one of our legs. There was also a great splash pool for the littlest ones. I imagine in the years to come we will have a lot more trouble getting the boys to want to leave all the sliding fun.

That evening we flew kites, ate a dinner of hot dogs, naturally, and tried to keep our eyes peeled open till the fire works show after dusk. 

The next evening I experienced embarrassing myself for the sake of my kids for the first time when I helped the boys (Jude, Levi and Owen) participate in the Friday Night camp talent show. I stood up on stage with them and recited the "Hi my name is Chubby" joke for all the world to see. They thought we were hilarious but I'm not quite sure how the rest of the church felt about our some-what lame joke.
But aside from my rosy pink embarrassed cheeks, an ER trip for some stitches for the Izzards after a scooter crash gone wrong and the fact that our campground was not tucked underneath a canopy of evergreens, we had a blast and all slept successfully despite our close proximity to one another. I think it's safe to say that we'll go camping again.