Camping with Higher Attitude

Ever since camping at Twin Lakes last year, we could not wait to get back. But we had to wait, wait for the snow to melt and wait for a nice fall weekend. The wait was worth it, just take a look.

Here is our little base camp.

Picking blueberries on our way up to Winchester Mountain.

A little glimpse of the 360 degree breathtaking view from the top.

Can you find our tent?

You might need a zoom, but it's down there. For Shawn and I, the highlight from the peak was the view, for the boys, it was the old fire lookout and the dogs that greeted them.

It was just about the perfect weekend if you omit the part of some fellow campers staying up in the wee hours of the morning being loud, obnoxious and using a "not very nice vocabulary". Yeah, it sure does not match the pristine and serene surroundings, but pollution is everywhere, unfortunately. On the upside, we took the rain fly off the tent and were able to admire the beautiful star filled sky and even saw some shooting stars and other interesting moving lights while we were kept up by "the bozos". We were even awoken later by the bright moon that shone right above us. There was no way to turn that light off, which was OK, it was such beautiful night and it was great to be able to appreciate it.

P. S. After I typed this , I heard in the news that people had seen a slow moving "object" in the sky, which astronomers believe to be a meteor. Now the mystery of what we saw is solved. Kind of neat, since it's usually the morning after that I hear of the cool things that appeared on the sky.

I could not think of a better way to spend these days. Surrounded by mountains, but best of all, surrounded by the family I love.

The Math Bug

Ethan complained about a headache and at first I did not have much sympathy, my head was raging as well. Later in the day as we took Christian to his classes and went on to run some errands, he kept begging to just go home. That's when I saw that he had goose bumps and felt quite warm. Once we were back home, he snuggled with a blanket, took some Tylenol and dozed. He recovered well and by evening felt and acted normal again. He also had a very palpable explanation to the onset of his malaise. "Mom, I know where I caught my fever, it's from doing all that math. My head was hurting when I was talking so much (referring to answering my math quizzes)." So be aware, you are at risk of coming down with a fever if you been exposed to to much math.

Product of a Blackout

Nolan made a reasonable request to have the last two weeks of summer vacation totally off. He was hoping for a total "brain freeze", no math quizzing, reading or anything that would remotely smell like education. Fair enough! Along with that I did not put any limit on their DS or TV. It did not take long for the bickering and rudeness to start. I have an unfounded, unscientific theory that if the kids are left with no restrictions to their electronic devises for entertainment, they rapidly become unpleasant, it works every time at our house. That's how our blackout was declared, and if they complained about boredom, I told them, I had plenty of educational stuff to keep them busy. They ran to the outdoors. Ah, the smell of fresh air! Christian joined the sailing racing camp down by the lake, and Nolan and Ethan started to dig an "air soft bunker". They spent days on end digging and getting dirty, and they got quite a bunker, with a tunnel and all.

Today there are numerous boys running around out there and reaping the benefits of their work, thanks to the blackout, I must say.

The brain freeze as come to an end as well, we are now in what I call the "brain awakening stage" and the boys would call it "brain torture". I'm sure they will survive, and maybe even emerge a little smarter, who knows?

Priceless

Those were Nolan's words to the people that asked how much he wanted for his catch. No way was he going to part with his fish, his first salmon, not to mentioned we would be breaking the law. We had heard lots of rumors that the salmon run was really good this year and that people had been catching their quota in a few hours. So the Masons and the Buhlers decided to give it a try. None of the fisherman had any salmon fishing experience, so the start was a little slow. Since Amy and I are not afraid to ask for directions , we soon found some fisherman that were happy to share their trade secrets and soon we were reeling those beauties in. Nolan has now caught the salmon fever and couldn't wait to get back to the river. Fortunately he has a friend that suffers from the same malaise, so that's where they are right now. I guess dinner will be taken care of again.

The excitement of the first catch

Caviar anyone?

For some reason my pictures of the final catch with all the fisherman turned blurry. So I'll have to wait for Amy to send me some, I'm sure her pictures turned out well. Stay tuned!

Across the Mountains

We headed across the mountains for a camping trip on Pearrygin Lake with some great friends. We had an awesome time, doing what campers do best, like sitting back, relaxing, cooking and eating some good food, getting refreshed either in the lake or with water guns and balloons (plain ol'e buckets worked too).

We had plenty of little campers and although they don't see each other very often, they had no problems getting acquainted. How can you go wrong when you mix a bunch of boys with water toys?

The big boys did not want to miss the fun either.

It sure is a small world. We met some friends from church who were also camping there. Nolan got up early one morning and "teacher" Pete, his Sunday School teacher, took him out fishing.

It pays to rise early, look at Nolan's catch. It also helps to have a good fisherman mentor along with you.

What a blessing it was for Ethan not to need a cast. Although occasionally he felt he couldn't keep up completely with the other boys, he still was able to join the water fun. The sling dried up pretty fast in the warm & dry eastern WA weather.