On Saturday, June 17th, the day after we finished up school we were on the road. Every year we go on our first camping trip to Oasis in Ephrata Washington. It's like our first celebration of the summer!
Now that the boys are older they are much better helpers for Michael. We still have to get on their case about asking how they can help or taking initiative to do something. They are getting much better though.
Ella and Zeke just get to hang out and play while the guys set the trailer up.
We always stay in the same spot....site 69. It's our favorite because of it's location to the bathrooms and this pond. It's also the largest spot!
Everything was so green!
The trailer is popping up!
While the guys were finishing setting up camp, Ella and I headed to Walmart to go shopping for the trip. I usually bring all the nonperishable food from home, but then I wait to buy the perishable stuff for when we get there. I saw these kayaks outside and decided to take a picture of them. Michael and I love to kayak, but we decided against buying one, they are such a pain to store and we just don't really have the room.
Once we got back I was able to get to work. I do all the set up inside and Ella usually helps me. There is so much to be set up and organized. My latest purchase for the trailer was this cool hanging garbage bag holder. You just use grocery store bags. Unfortunately the newer plastic bags don't fit right so I actually had to order a pack of 100 grocery bags from amazon. It's so nice to have a small garbage in the trailer and not be on the floor taking up space.
I love getting the inside all organized....it makes it so I can fully relax!
Almost fully set up....I think the only thing we were missing was the canopy over the table. Home sweet home for 5 nights! This was the longest we've ever camped in one location and it was the perfect amount of time!
The week prior to our camping trip, Michael, Owen & Jack were with a few people from our church down in Oregon for a Rafting Trip. Our church has gone on this rafting trip for years every June. Michael has wanted to go before this, but it's just never worked out. It ended up being so fun and they are planning on making it a priority every year from now on.
One mishap that Michael had was applying sunscreen to his legs while standing up. Then when he sat in the raft his shorts pulled up exposing his legs. He got torched! In fact he was so burnt he couldn't even go out for the last run they were supposed to go on on Sunday morning.
That whole week after we were putting Aloe Vera gel on his legs multiply times. Days later they still were so red. He most likely had a 2nd degree burn, but he never did go to the doctor. While we were sitting there enjoying the campground he noticed that his skin felt different. Then this happened...if you don't like gross stuff don't look!
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His skin started to peel!
In like full sheets!
I had never seen a sheet of skin come off someone before.
He did one leg and them moved to the other.
It was so weird seeing the skin have little dots in it from where hair came through.
Even though the underneath was red the dead skin had stayed on long enough to give that layer underneath time to heal a bit.
Michael said it didn't hurt to pull it off at all. In fact once all that dead skin was off it felt so much better.
Bet you never saw a ball of skin before...let alone two balls of skin!
After all the excitement with skin, we headed out to dinner at DK's. It's a tradition for our family to eat dinner there on our first night since we're tired from the drive and setting everything up. Plus I like to support a local establishment. Even though dinner and dessert comes to over $100!
The food is yummy and these kids are worth it!
When we got back we noticed there was a Mama duck and her ducklings in the pond!
They were so cute just floating around. The ducklings would dive down and eat stuff under the water. They were also cleaning themselves.
They always made sure to stay close to Mama and not go too far away. There were 8 ducklings!
It was so funny sometimes they would come up out of the water flapping their wings. I think it was a way for them to clean themselves.
I had the kids all kneel down by the water, but I wouldn't let them feed them. I just wanted to get a picture of them like this so Pa could show it to Brenda at church. When the kids were littler while we were walking into church sometimes the kids would be following behind us in a row like little ducklings so Brenda would call them my little ducklings. Pa did show her the picture on Sunday and she got a kick out of it!
It's funny how each time we've stay at Oasis there has been a different animal species that is prominent. The first time we stayed here with the kids in 2020 there were frogs everywhere. Ella and Zeke had such fun catching them in cups and observing them. Of course they put them back. The next two times we stayed in 2021 & 2022 it was squirrels. The tree that's in our campsite was like a squirrel highway. We did feed them, but we left them nuts in the tree so I didn't feel so bad. Then this time around no frogs or squirrels, but the ducks were around almost the whole trip. It's so fun to observe nature!
The best part about camping...just hanging out with family and spending good quality time with each other!
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