Fort Stevens and Tacoma

It's been nearly two weeks since we went camping and I'm just finally getting it up on our blog.We had an exciting camping trip with my family. Elizabeth organized everything and we were excited to finally take Charlie on a camping trip to start the summer off right. We figured he would love it, all the dirt and sticks that he could dream of. As it turns out, he did love it, and he is no longer happy confined indoors. Anyway, this is how our trip went...

Max got off work a little early on Friday and we headed to Fort Stevens to go camping. We stopped at Shari's for a little family dinner before journeying on our way. We arrived at the campsite around 8pm (usually Charlie's bedtime) and started setting up the tent while being swarmed by mosquitoes. Charlie really liked playing with the tent poles and trying to put them together. 

Shortly after we got all set up, my mom arrived with my two little brothers. While Max helped them put up the tent trailer, Dan built a fire which repelled all the mosquitoes. Charlie was really intrigued by the fire and I'm pretty sure he still doesn't understand that it's hot but luckily he got tired enough that he was pretty content just sitting on our laps. We all got to snack on s'mores and other treats. 

Getting ready for his first night sleeping in a tent. 

At the end of the first night I felt so peacecful. I was thinking of how camping is such a weird event, it takes a ton of work to prepare to "rough-it" and I figured I would be stressed all weekend and planned on Charlie not sleeping at all and being freezing. Instead of the stress, I felt so blessed. Cuddling with my whole family in my tent made me realize how special they were and if I were to lose all the comforts I'm used to, I would still have everything.
Charlie did great sleeping through the night in our bed. Max and I did not really sleep much.
We all woke up early with the morning light. We let Charlie roam the tent while we attempted to sleep a little more which didn't really work. However, Charlie is pretty content playing with flashlights for awhile.

We got up and had some fruit, and oatmeal, and hot cocoa for breakfast.

Charlie had "warm" cocoa he was pretty excited about

Then some "playing with stick" time

He got tired earlier than normal so Max got him to settle down for a nap. 

After Charlie went down for a nap, Max went on a bike ride with my brothers. They went to the beach and Battery Russell. In the meanwhile, Charlie woke up all disoriented and confused at why he was alone in a tent. He was pretty grumpy but the tears soon went away when he found Unlce Austin's shovel and dragged it all around camp...and other people's camps.

The boys still weren't back from there bike ride so my mom and I decided to take Charlie to the play structure at the campground. Charlie could climb and play here all day.

The boys eventually came back and we found out that the tire on Max's bike had popped so they had to walk and jog a big part of the way.
When everyone was back, Elizabeth called us and said they were almost in Astoria and asked if we wanted to meet them at the Astoria column. Of course we did. This is a place I've gone to many times as a kid but Max has never been so it was fun to share it with him.
When we got there we met James, Elizabeth, and the girls who were all covered in colored powder from running the color run earlier that day in Portland. We went to the gift shop and bought our $1 wooden plane to drop of the tower. We hiked up the 189 steps to get a great view of the Columbia river.

At the top of the column.

Looking down

About to throw his airplane but instead he broke the tail off which caused problems with the flight pattern. 

We then visited in the lawn for a bit and headed back to camp for dinner. We had hot dogs and corn on the cob for dinner. The little ones took turns riding in the bike trailer while James went for a bike ride. We then sat by the campfire eating treats again!

The next morning we ate more oatmeal, hot cocoa, and fruit and then ran Charlie around the campsite loop to get some wiggles out.

Our campsite. James and Elizabeth's was next to ours. 

As the grown ups cleaned up, the kids had a blast playing in grandma's tent trailer

Once our car was all packed up we went as our small family of 3 to explore Battery Russell.

There was something majestic about this long corridor .

We then went to explore the beach where the Wreck of the Peter Iredale is.

Charlie had never played on the beach before. He was so excited to have all of this space to run around.  

One Happy Kid!!

Feeling blessed every day for these two!

Looking at the 100 year old ship wreck, not much remains but it was a very big ship!

Throwing sand!

He fell to the ground and wasn't even mad about it. He smiled and licked the ground.  I guess he was just so happy that he had to kiss it!

Ship remains

Playing in the ocean with daddy. Neither of them cared how freezing it was. 

Charlie wanted to keep running in. 

They make me so happy!

Then it was clean up time. 

We went to meet the rest of the family in Seaside but Charlie was pretty tired by that point that we decided to just head back home.
We were only home for one night before we headed out for another trip.

Home but tired, he attempted his cup holding skills with some green smoothie!

I love this kid's faces. 

The next day, after Max got off work, we headed up to Tacoma to spend a night at my brother's new house while Max did a fire fighting test for Tacoma. We got there just in time to go to bed. We all went to sleep but Charlie was getting sick (and probably way off his normal schedule) so he had a rough night. He ended up with us on a deflating mattress so we didn't sleep much. I felt bad for Max because I wanted him to be well rested for his test, but it all worked out. In the morning, Charlie and I dropped Max off at the Tacoma Dome to take his test, we then went back as everyone was waking up. We ate breakfast and had some cousin popsicle and play time.

Before we knew it Max was all done with his test. I went to go pick him. He felt okay about it but he still wished he spent more time studying so we'll see how it goes. We came back to the house and packed up some lunches then went to meet James at his exciting work at the hospital. It really was exciting. He's a physical therapist there so his workplace looked like the playground of the hospital. We ate lunch there then went off to the zoo as is the tradition when we go to Tacoma.
Gwenevere likes to try and kiss this falcon through the glass so all the kids (+ Max) tried it.

Smile Grace

Before we left we decided to take a carousel ride.

Charlie was pretty exhausted but he still enjoyed it. 

There's my happy boy. 

Elizabeth sure knows how to show us a good time when we come into town. It was fun to see their new house and all the tons of work they have put into it. We were excited to be home and have a calm couple of days after all our adventures. I don't think it will be long before we go camping again though!