Camping, canoeing, campfire, crafts, cooking...

We left last Monday for Family Camp up at Shaver Lake. We were there for 5 days and 5 nights. It was a week of fun - that's for sure. Jeremy and I both decided we could've stayed a few more days.

We've done this same camping excursion for the past 7 or 8 years in a row now and we LOVE IT! The kids always have a blast doing everything they're not allowed to do at home (staying up late, eating junk food from dawn till dusk, playing in the mud, throwing their food on the ground, playing with fire, and playing playing playing all day long). And when I say "kids" I do not use that term loosely. This was no measly family camp. No, no, no... there were 30 kids for 3 days straight and 36 all together including those that came and went. And that's just the kids - there were adults there too!

We were alone most of the week. We camp in a semi-private campground and were lucky that there was only 1 other family there besides our group for about 4 of the days. We could be as loud as we wanted - early or late.

We always say that we do these camping adventures for the kids, but I don't know anymore. I know all of us adults really enjoyed most of our time there.

Here are our top 10 Family Camp favorite moments:

10. Trevor and Logan slept in their own tent. Ahhhhhh. They are finally old enough to branch out on "their own" and sleep away from mom and dad. It was a small distance they slept from us, but a huge leap for our family dynamics.

9. Little blue screens in every tent at bed time. We are pretty lucky in this campground to have electricity at our fingertips. So every night most families would put the kids to bed for a little wind down time and turn on a movie for them. It was pretty comical to be in the great outdoors and see little TVs set up in every tent after dark.

8. Lizzie's crush. We made some new friends this week - a family that the Minnicks know from their Turlock days. About 2 minutes after they arrived Lizzie came over to me and said, "Mommy who's my new friend?" There were 4 kids mind you and she zeroed in on one - instantly. She and "New Trevor" were glued at the hip for the rest of the stay.

7. Putting the kids to bed and then hanging out with just adults every night. This was soooo enjoyable! It was like a mini date night where we could feel sane again playing games and talking about things other than kids for awhile.

6. The food. Oh yeah. We ate like camping royalty. Mexican food, ableskivers, pulled pork sandwiches, burgers and dogs, homemade chili, campfire treats every night, lunch served on the beach, oh baby it was great. Matt and Aimee even bought pizza one night - the kids were in hog heaven!

5. Watching Trevor ROCK OUT during kareoke night. We've NEVER seen him get out of his shell like that. He's usually mister quiet/reserved boy, but that night something happened. He was dancing like crazy and even sang a duet in the microphone with Jacob - and we didn't even have to twist his arm!

4. Campfire stories. Grandpa Doug rocked our campground with his traditional telling of the scary stories. He had all the kids captivated for about an hour and then sent them to bed. About 7 of them woke up that night in a nightmare terror.

3. The frog in the shower. Buffy went in to take a shower one night after dark and as she went in she reached around to turn on the light a slimy something slithered across her bare foot. She let out a blood curdling scream and came running out. A few minutes later we found a slimy green frog climbing the wall. Ew, ew, ew!

2. YMCA. All I have to say is Jared, Matt, Jeremy and Robb dressed up (sort of) like the Village People and singing all the wrong words. We haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

1. Matt got pulled over by the Shaver Lake Sherrif for having too many bodies on the boat with life jackets that were either too big or too small for most of the passengers. They got off without a ticket, but the officer was "nice enough" to hand out whistles to all 30 kids that were there that day. All the adults agreed we'd rather have had the ticket.
Check out the slide show Matt put together below...

Family Camp Slideshow

Family Camp 2007

Our family went to family camp at Shaver Lake this past week for our annual Ward Family & friends camping trip. The weather was warm, but very enjoyable by the lake, which was where we spent most our time. We were surprised to have the camp mostly to ourselves this year, as it is usually packed during the week of the 4th of July. Dad brought the ski boat and we brought the canoe which provided endless hours of fun. We also have one of those large water trampolines for the kids to play on, which doesn't allow the kids to jump as high as a land one, but is a lot of fun to have shoving off wars on. The lake is quite low this year due to the poor snow pack last winter, but it gave us a lot of beach to choose from. We spent 5-6 hours per day down by the lake and still had to drag the kids up to camp for dinner.

Traditionally each family cooks one breakfast and one dinner during the week allowing more time for everyone to play around. Jennifer, Robb and I (mostly Jennifer) made some great Mexican food one night (Tacos, Nachos, Chile Verde, Rice), and omelette's made to order, hash browns, fruit, danish and muffins for breakfast one morning. Each family tends to go a little overboard with their meals providing for a wide variety of good food choices. We also had burgers, pasta dinner, pulled pork sandwiches, and my favorite, avil skivers (?). I'm sitting a little heavier now because of it.

Trevor, Logan and Lizzie did a wonderful job of entertaining themselves endlessly with all the different kids their age to play with. Jackson was a different story. Jennifer and I often forget how difficult it is to take a toddler camping. Jackson loved to explore the camp, finding any half drunken soda can he could get his hands on, of which there were plenty. Jackson found negotiating the uneven terrain challenging at times, and he has the scraped nose to show for it.

Shaver Lake has a cool fire work show every year around the 4th of July off of one of the islands on lake, which is why, in part, we go during the 4th each year. This years was as cool as ever, you really can't beat the setting. The sounds of the fireworks echo throughout the area as there are a number of large peaks around. It is always a highlight of the summer.

Jennifer told me on the drive home that she could have stayed a couple of more days. I felt the same way. A good way to end a family trip.