Our first camping trip of the season is always to Oasis in Ephrata! This year we didn't book it so early in June in hopes that the weather would be nicer. We went from Thursday, June 16th to Monday, June 20th.
The weather was nicer than last year, but it still had it's moments. Summer was slow coming this year for sure. I don't think it got over 75 while we were there and we had a good 12 hours of rain one night where it rained from 5pm - 5am. I actually didn't mind that though...I love the sound of the rain in the tent trailer!
All packed up and ready to go! Of course right as we were driving down the road the trailer brakes kept saying the brakes were disconnected. That was not a good sign and there was no way we were going to go over the pass without brakes for the trailer. It wasn't that the plug wasn't staying in the correct spot it was that the truck wasn't recognizing it as being plugged in. Thankfully Michael fiddled around with it and got it to the point to where the truck recognized that there was in fact a trailer connected to it.
We ate lunch at Cle Elm at Dairy Queen and sheesh have prices gone up. It cost over $70 to feed our family and we didn't even get ice cream. Ouch!
Once we arrived at Oasis I went into the office to check in. This is where there was a little hiccup to the trip. When I originally booked our site I booked it for Friday - Tuesday, but then I decided to change it to Thursday - Monday. I called the office at Oasis right back and the lady that I talked with said she'd make the change. I guess she must have gotten distracted or something because it never got changed and someone else was in our site until the next day when they would check out. Thankfully it was early enough in the year there were other spots available, but still that was kind of a bummer. Especially having a tent trailer. It's not like we get out and push a button to set up. It's a whole ordeal and now we were going to have to do it twice!
Since we knew we weren't going to be at that spot except one night we didn't even get comfortable. The boys even slept in the trailer even though we brought the tent for them.
We did of course get the camp chairs out so we had a place to sit and relax!
Papa and Ruth came camping with us for a couple of days. They were two sites up from us. You can see Ruth walking over in this picture.
The weather was really nice when we got there so the kids were eager to jump in the pool. Michael and I had gone shopping at Wal-Mart while Papa & Ruth took the kids swimming. While we were there Ruth called to ask if we could buy the kids some goggles. They were so expensive so I asked her if they had any at the little store there. They did and so she got those instead. They weren't the best, but they were fine for the trip and that's all we needed.
I was trying to take this picture of Owen and I caught him mid-sneeze!!! :)
They love the pool!
Last year we had such a bad experience with the chlorine from the pool. All the kids faces ended up peeling and they burned so bad. This year we were determined to not have that happen so the moment they were finished in the pool they went right into the showers and washed up. We didn't have any issues at all. Our sweet kids have such sensitive skin!
It's tradition for us on the first night of our camping trip to go to DK's Drive-In for dinner. It's nice to not have to worry about dinner since we're tired from driving over and then also setting up camp. I also really like to support the local community in Ephrata.
These are my people!
This was the first trip where it truly felt like everything was back to normal. No one was wearing masks at all! It was a nice!!!
Time for dessert....Jack got a banana boat...literally the container was shaped like a boat!
Chocolate!
Cookie Dough!
Chocolate Malt Milkshakes!
Daddy also got Cookie Dough!
That first night was a bit interesting! We were right next to all these different people who were friends with each other. They all hung out at the trailer right across from ours. They were drinking and playing music quite loud until 11pm. I went over at 10pm to ask them if they could turn down their music just a bit since Zeke said he couldn't sleep. If looks could kill! Sheesh!
The next morning Michael made breakfast...we had pancakes and bacon!
After breakfast, Michael took the boys golfing. On his way back he texted me that the people at our site were moving so it was time to move. I started getting everything in the tent trailer moved down so we could close it up.
We put it almost all the way down, but not quite.
All the stuff that we had already taken out of the truck and trailer we had the kids move by hand. In our new location Papa & Ruth were still only 2 sites away from us, but it was in the other direction now. Now it was time to set everything up and it could start to feel like a real vacation.
Last year we used the tent in our backyard when we had that horrendous heatwave. I got to thinking it was about time for the older boys to sleep outside in the tent instead of in the trailer. For one thing 6 people in the trailer gets crowded and for another I was so tired of never having my table in the trailer available since it was Ella's bed. I had a couple extra Sterilite drawers so each of the boys got their own. We also had a section of wood leftover from Michael making the kids desks so we set that across the two drawers to make it sturdy enough for their clock, noisemaker and the space heater.
I found these air mattresses at this clearance store when we were camping last year at Ocean Shores. They were only $9!
The tent is huge so one half was the boys bedroom and the other half is what we called the Kids' Dining Room. It was so convenient for them to have a place to play games and not have to deal with the wind.
All set up and ready to go!
I'm usually so bad about taking pictures of our campsite all set up! Here was our home away from home. We didn't end up putting up the canopy over the table this trip!
There quite a few squirrels at the campground and we had fun supplying them with nuts. There's this tree right next to our site and that we called The Magic Nut Tree. At least that's what the squirrels must think it is! It was so fun to watch them be territorial with each other and see how their bodies were designed to walk straight down the trunk of a tree. So cool! Of course the kids named them. I think this one was Jerry!
The pond by our site! This is the reason we love this site. It's huge and it has it's own pond...not really, but the way the reeds grow the opening to the pond is right on our site so it sure feels like it! It's so pretty!
My favorite thing about camping....getting to sit in my hammock and read!
Back at the pool! When Michael and I went shopping at Walmart he tossed this water football into the cart. The kids were having fun jumping in the pool and seeing if they could catch the ball. I had a blast too!
That night the kids ate in their dining room for dinner!
Since it was Father's Day weekend I decided to plan a nice meal. Papa & Ruth were only camping with us for 2 nights before they moved onto their next spot so we were celebrating on Friday night. We had steak, potatoes and salad.
Michael has a bite of steak in his mouth! :)
The next day Zeke wanted to go golfing. The lady at the front desk gave him this little set of golf clubs to use for our whole stay. They were so adorable!!!
Late Friday night our friends Johnathen & MJ showed up with their 3 boys.
There oldest Jaxon is Ella's same age. He was up for the summer from TX. He lives with his mom there. Ella had fun spending time with Jaxon and he also enjoyed spending time with her. It was her first real boy crush!
Zeke just checking out the squirrels!
You can always find Owen with a book!
MJ bought Pokémon cards for all the kids so they had fun playing cards.
One of my other favorite things about camping is just slowing down and playing games! This is a game that Ella and I found. It was actually inside our Sequence game. I didn't know it was a totally separate game though...I thought they were just added pieces you could use if you wanted too. It's called Chips. It was so easy and you could make it yourself. All you need is 10 Poker Chips, a Sharpie marker to write numbers on the poker chips and two dice. Each poker chip has a number from 1 - 10 on it. You roll the dice and say you get a 7....you could choose to remove the 6 & 1 or the 4 & 3 or just the 7. Let's say we removed the 6 & 1. Then you roll again and you get an 11...you could remove the 10 & 1, but you already got rid of the 1 on your last roll. You could remove the 6 & 5, but you already got rid of the 6 on the last turn as well. So we'll remove the 8 & 3. You keep doing that until you roll and get a number that you can't remove the chips for. You add up the leftover chips and that's your score. The person with the least amount of points after 3 rounds wins. Super easy and you can take it anywhere since the game can fit in a Ziploc baggie and go in your purse! It's a really good game if you have a kiddo that's struggling with Math.
On Sunday morning, we headed out to go hike the Lake Lenore Caves with the Oliver Family. The last time we hiked this was in September 2020 and the smoke was so bad we could barely see anything.
Here's the shot from 2020!
This is basically the same shot in 2022!
It was gorgeous out!
We saw a beetle cross our path and the silly thing decided to "hide" from us by sticking it's head in the rocks!
And because I always love a good comparison shot here's Jack in 2020 sitting on his throne!
Here he is now in 2022 on the same throne!
That's hilarious...I just noticed he's wearing the exact same shirt! What are the odds!!!
The kids had a great time hiking! It wasn't too hot at all!
Last time Michael hiked down into the big cave at the end and I stayed up top. This time I decided to hike down and he stayed up.
The boys taking a break in the cave!
It's so nice cool in there!
The whole fam!
I love this picture of me & Michael!
Of course the kids were faster than the parents and got back down to the parking lot before us. Then I started hearing things about a snake! Of course we're hollering at them to stay away from the snake and don't touch the snake and so on.
Turns out it was a rattlesnake. It was in the bushes and not on the path.
It was actually really cool! I had never seen a rattlesnake in the wild before. I didn't feel scared at all and the kids were smart enough to leave it alone!
On our way back to the campground there were all these people parked at Soap Lake so we pulled over. There were having a boat race. It was so cool to watch from the road! After our hike the Oliver family headed home so we had the last night to ourselves.
Jackson really wanted to learn how to start a fire like on Survivor. Michael was showing him what to do.
Scrap some magnesium off and then hit your flint to make a spark.
Jackson worked and worked at it for a long time. It was hard for him to get the spark where it needed to go. Michael stepped in and helped him and together they got it going. I was so proud of him!
Such a fun thing!
After that Owen really wanted to try to do it himself. He had listened to everything Michael had said to Jack and watched what Jack did. He was actually able to get it going fairly quickly. Isn't it interesting how everyone of us has some things that come naturally to us and others that we really have to work at to accomplish. In the end both of us can do it, but the one who has a harder time just has to persevere more at it. Such a great thing to learn!
Way to go guys!
Burn baby burn!
Love the color of the sky with those big puffy clouds! That girl over there is pretty cute too!
The fire has always been his favorite!
Roasted Starbursts are the best!
The smoke always finds its way to Owen!
The next day it was time to head home. Michael always has us search the campsite for any bit of trash...even if it's not ours. He tells the kids it's our job to leave the campsite cleaner than it was when we got there.
Truck's all packed up!
Taking apart my kitchen cabinets to be stored in the trailer!
On our way home this time we ate MCD's in Cle Elm...which is not my favorite, but at least it didn't cost $70 for our family to eat lunch! There had to have been a concert or something at the Gorge because Cle Elm was packed!
We decided to pull over at Vantage to get out and look at the Columbia River for a second.
When we got home the kids gave Michael his Father's Day gifts!
They got him a new wallet...his old one was falling apart!
Ella painted this beautiful painting for Michael one of the times she was at Aidry's house. It was so sweet!
First camping trip of the year in the books. I think we might actually use our trailer 4 times this year...which is always my goal, but never ends up actually happening. We shall see!
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