Flowing Lake

We took a quick overnight to Flowing Lake park. It was pretty close to home, not a very long drive at all, so a good place for an overnight. We left by 9 a.m. (something close to a miracle in this house, and only made possible by the fact that the older girls had to attend a training camp and left at 8:30). Once we set up we had lunch and then spent the afternoon at the lake where the kids went swimming in their clothes! We saw a mama and baby ducks. We headed back for dinner and later the kids and the dads went fishing. We took this trip with our neighbors Amy, Jason and Abbie. It was fun with just the little kids (and a lot less crowded in the camper!) but the girls would have enjoyed it too. The highlight of Harrison's weekend was being the first to try out the new "porta privy" which is a pop-up shelter (similar to those kids' playhouses!) in which you place the foldable, camping-chair-like potty. Think camping chair with padded toilet seat. You attach a bag to this contraption and there's your own private outhouse. We decided it should be for emergency only, and all of us felt slightly embarrassed by peeing noisily just feet away from everyone enjoying drinks around the fire. Especially when some joker would yell "I can barely even hear you!". Then, of course, was the "walk of shame" when the person who decided to do more than just pee had to cart the bag to the garbage bin. Harrison, of course, was the only person proud enough to do this and wasn't shy about telling us all about it, later swinging what looked like a stuffed chicken to the garbage can (how the hell much toilet paper can one use anyway?). Suffice it to say this new "addition" to our camper was pretty funny (but sure beat the hell out of stumbling your way to the john in the middle of the night). Aside from the potty business, we got rained on during the night! Not just a few sprinkles, mind you. No, this was a bonafide "you live in Seattle so you're going to get pissed on during the month of July" type of rain. Needless to say, everything got soaked (except us, of course, we stayed warm and dry in our camper snuggled under our down comforters!). But dragging all the soggy, pine-needle-covered accoutrements of camping home and having to hose them all down and dry them out is a bitch to say the least (but who am I kidding - I didn't do any of this - I unloaded and Jeff did the rest!). Still, it was fun and we are still loving our new camper. Oh, also while we were there, the kids had a blast taking photos. I will include some here and add some new ones to the sidebar. I let them use my new (very expensive!) camera and an older digital that we have. Enjoy!