Camping at Fins

For a few years now, I've been seeing and hearing about camping from our good friends, Mr & Mrs W. They are what I'd call camping experts. Brad and I are...not. We are "indoorsy" to put it lightly. We love adventures, but we also love our comfy bed. One of our favorite comedians has a bit about camping and he says, "The only 'happy camper' is the guy leaving the campsite!" (Jim Gaffigan...hysterical!) 

Anyway, I've always told Mrs W that we'd love to join them sometime. And I guess, in the back of my mind, I wasn't sure if it would ever happen - not that she wouldn't invite us, but that it just wouldn't work out with schedules and all. A couple weeks ago, she invited us and we didn't have anything else planned. After some convincing (of Brad) and a lot of calling around to see if people had things we could borrow, we loaded up! Lucy had a stomach bug, but she was so excited to go and we decided that she was well enough to handle it. 

Back in 2009, when we were packing up our crate in the USA to move overseas, we had extra space and we went to Target and bought things to fill that space. We just happened to buy a tent! It's never been used or even out of the box! We weren't sure we'd all fit inside... You can see on the right side, the part poking out is Will's pack-n-play. It took up the most space inside the tent. These were the only two things we contributed to the camp. Thankfully, Mr & Mrs W, as previously mentioned, are camping experts and they had everything else we could possibly need!

I know it's a blotchy picture, but the kids playing under the table was too cute.

 Mr & Mrs W have these cots. Lucy wasn't 100%, and she took every opportunity to lay down...

 Looking inside our tent. You can see our pillows, Lucy, mine, Brad. We slept nice and tightly together.

 Our end of the camp

 I took my iron skillet - to really get that Pioneer Woman feel. We made burgers the first night.

This was probably 6:30am the first morning. 

 We were most concerned about Will sleeping, and it turned out that he slept the best of anyone in the camp! I mean, he was in the pack-n-play, and he had more room than anyone else! 

 SO beautiful. We camped on the beach, between the ocean and the mountains. 

 The kiddos refused to get into the water, but Brad and I had a great time swimming! It was a bit cool, but in the middle of the day, it was the perfect temperature! 

 Our campsite is in the distance.

"Hey, let's get a Christmas card picture..." 

We went on an amazing hike!  

 Mrs W! I love her! 

Lucy hadn't been feeling so well, but wasn't throwing up and didn't have a fever, so she went on the walk, too. 

 It was beautiful!

 Will was trying so hard to climb like the big kids!

 She was starting to wilt by this point...

 We got back to the camp and all Lucy wanted to do was lay down and sleep. She had a couple of tummy bug incidents that day :(

While the kids and Brad rested, I went for another hike with the W family. 

We explored this cove and all these tide pools. 

We got back and everyone was up and ready to play. 

 And we finally found some water that Will liked! The tide pools! He loved walking into them and splashing.

 Neither Lucy nor Will got into the ocean at all on this trip.

But they love playing in the sand! And true to little boys, Will only wanted to knock down the castles that the girls had built.

 Lucy wasn't feeling too hot by the evening. 

It was a full moon, so it was SUPER bright both nights! 

The sunrise was magnificent! 

 Lucy was just about 100% by the last morning, so she enjoyed playing in the sand with the W kiddos.

Will, on the other hand, had had enough. He was ready to GO. While I was loading up the car, he kept trying to climb in. 

 Finally, by 8:30ish that morning, we'd had enough of the whining and crying, and we loaded up and headed back home.

The kids were pooped. 

Brad and I took about 4 days to get back to "normal" and to get over being so tired. But overall, it was an amazing trip! I'm not sure either of our kiddos will remember it...but I think we'll for sure go again - when Lucy isn't sick and Will is older! First ever camping trip was a success!