Camping trip to Belfair State Park

This past weekend we made a last minute decision to join some friends for a little camping trip to Belfair State Park.  While it wasn't my favorite camping spot in the world, it was nice and there was water for the kids to get wet in.  If we got down to it when the tide was in.  If we missed high tide we had to make our way through the mud.

Lots and lots of mud.  That Molly thoroughly enjoyed.

We learned from our first outing to the water to make sure to plan our second day around the tide.  (I refused to spend time trying to save another set of clothes from the mud!)  This time all the kids got to enjoy themselves by swimming and searching the waters for little sea creatures.

 Nice legs, babe!  I don't how I missed that fashion statement when I snapped this picture.

Because so many of our friends have kids JK's age (yes all of these kids but one are in his class and two of them are actually a few months older then him), he had lots of buddies to hang out with. 

We didn't want Molly to feel left out so we let her bring her friend Jasmine along, too.   

She's such a good big sis though and made sure not to let Lillie feel left out.  I heart these girls!

It was such a great weekend and really made me remember how much I love camping.  (Real camping that's not in my parents side yard, that is.)  We're hoping to start doing a lot more of it, which leaves us wondering if it might be time to upgrade to a newer motor home, or maybe even a trailer.  My vote is a trailer.  Our current little home on wheels needs some work done to it, so we're going to have to price it out and then decide if it's worth pouring the money into or just upgrading.  While I love the memories we've created in our little motor home and the fact that we don't have a payment on it.  I'm really hoping to find something a little newer and a little more modern.  

5th Annual 4th of July Camping Trip

We celebrated another 4th of July with a long camping weekend with some of our favorite peeps!  While our guest list has changed a bit over the years, we still have a few of our besties who have attended each and every 4th with us over the past 5 years, rain or shine.  When Clint and I were putting our guest list together we decided that we honestly have some of the best friends with the best kiddos in the entire world!  

We celebrated the day of the 4th with some fun kid fireworks and then Clint did his big show on the 5th.  This year I decided to video tape it so that he could actually see his show and therefore didn't get any pictures.  As always his show was spectacular and earned a lot of oohs and awes throughout it.

Because of the large amounts of time we spent in the water over this beautiful weekend I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked to.  But by Sunday I think our pink cheeks and permanent smiles showed just how much fun we'd all had.  In fact none of us wanted to pack up and head back to reality. 

     

While normally we make this just a 3 day trip we decided to take advantage of the 85 degree plus weather that was being forecasted and extend our trip to cover the actual 4th (which fell on a Thursday) and make it a 4 day trip.  Our extended weekend included lots of friends, a spectacular firework show, great food, smores' (and one of our new favorites fire roasted banana boats), lots of dogs, an entire day floating the lake, some fishing, lots of sun and of course sunscreen.  Tons of laughter, and one small accident that left Clint and I in the emergency room until 4am on Monday morning with a burned hand and a bit of a burned ego.  Aside from the er visit, there is nothing I would have changed about the weekend.

A few of the boys telling us just how big the fish that got away was.