With church cancelled and life in general suddenly very open, we decided that we needed to unplug and go camping more often. It helps that in Clovis we are close to the Sequoia National Forest and the Sierras. One weekend in May we decided we should finally go. Camping with a 2 month old seemed a bit crazy but I figured that since I was losing sleep, I might as well be doing it in the mountains. I found an available campsite about an hour and a half away on recreation.gov and we went for it. It ended up being the best weekend!
We barely managed to fit everything we needed in our van. We definitely need either a bigger car or a cargo thing for the top of the car. We got there Friday night and got everything set up:
Enjoying this view:
Eli was SO excited to camp. He's been begging to go for years and didn't even remember the last time we'd gone. Here he is hanging out with Eve:
Nate chopping wood:
We had a lot of fun throwing Joe's hatchet and playing with Elizabeth's archery set. We all figured out how to throw it into the tree:
We also had fun playing on these fallen logs by our campsite:
Eve did pretty well on the trip. We tried to protect her from the bugs in our tent a lot:
It was pretty warm during the day so she was fine. Look at this chubby goodness:
The nights were another story. I hardly slept at all. It was pretty cold at night so I'd bring her into our double sleeping bag but then I was freaked out the whole night that she'd somehow be smothered. It was hard to feed her in the middle of the night while staying inside the sleeping bag in the dark, too. I've never mastered nursing while lying down with my babies. Joe and I were a little better prepared the second night with layers so it was a bit better.
We made beef stew and cooked hot dogs and made lots of s'mores. One day the kids and Joe walked over to Hume Lake to fish, swim and kayak. Eve and I caught up on sleep and then we walked over later.
The girls had fun swimming across the lake. Apparently, Eli took off in his life jacket wanting to swim across the lake so all the kids did it once. Then the girls did it again. Natalie decided she wanted to swim across and back one more time:
She definitely got a good workout in!
Joe brought his fishing set (that he'd been given 8 years before and finally got to use) and he and Nate were determined to catch a fish.
After hours of fishing on the shore and from the kayak, they still hadn't had any luck. Other people around them were catching some so it was frustrating. Still, they kept at it. I left with the other kids. Then, Natalie and Eli walked back over to them and right when they arrived, Nate had caught a fish! Joe was out in the kayak and so we're not sure exactly how it happened because the hook in its mouth was someone else's. We think he got the line that had broken off. Still--it was a good-sized fish! They brought it home and we cooked it up in the fire and ate it with no seasoning or anything. It was pretty good! We forgot to get a picture earlier and by the time it was cooked, Nate was weirded out by its eyeballs and didn't want to hold it. :)
We had our own little church in the woods and really enjoyed being together with no distractions. We'll definitely be back as soon as we can.
