Holdaway Happenings: Family camping trip to Paradise Point state park

Another week in the books! We had the missionaries over for dinner, and, wanting to be little teasers and performers, Luke and Logan put the missionaries' shoes on their own feet! Look closely, and you'll see they put one of each on their feet. Silly boys!

Luke and Logan wearing missionary shoes. Someday they'll have their own mission shoes!

Emmie has her own shoes on in this picture. She's so sweet. I love it when she wants to go somewhere because she'll go over by the door, pick up her shoes, bring them to me or Suzanna and then give them to us and motion toward the door, all the while babbling and pointing, as though she's telling us, "Let's go!"

Emmie and Suzanna (in the mirror).

The highlight of this week was our FAMILY camping trip to Paradise Point State Park just off I-5 near Woodland. I had been telling Suzanna that since we're back, I needed to take the boys camping. Somehow the idea of the whole family going came up, and fortunately, Suzanna was tentatively on board. We watched the weather and gathered supplies during the week. Sadly, there was a burn ban in effect due to the recent dry weather, so we took out the propane camp grill (which we bought in Texas but hadn't used yet!) and figured out how to set it up. Then, Friday morning, I checked the Washington State Parks website again and saw that the burn ban had just been lifted for campfires only! We scrambled and found some firewood and set out to go camping as a family once I was done with work.

We stopped at Shari's for dinner. We figured it would be significantly less complicated to do dinner this way instead of trying to make something at the campsite. The kids all filled their bellies and were happy by the time we left, so it was money and time well spent. Suzanna and I shared an apple-pie-in-a-jar for dessert as well. Mmm... maybe not quite as good as the s'mores, though!

Emmie at Shari's. Look at those blue eyes!

Logan, Luke, and Suzanna, waiting for their food.

Despite rush hour traffic, we made it out to our camping site without much trouble and in decent time. We stopped at the ranger's station to figure out where our site was and what the protocol was for unloading/setting up. Turns out, our campsite was the closest one to the unloading area where we parked the van for a bit to get our gear out and start setting up. The picture below is of our site shortly after we arrived.

Campsite at Paradise Point Park

After setting up, we took the kids on a little hike to explore the area. Heading east from our site, through the rest of the walk-in sites and beyond, we followed a trail a half mile or so as it snaked around through the thick trees and ended up emerging by the slow-moving lazy Lewis River. We played there for a few minutes before deciding to go get our swimming suits on and finding a better place for swimming.

We heard there was a legitimate "beach" about a half mile up the road from the campground, so we jumped in the van and headed to the area were I-5 crosses the river. It turns out, there was quite a bit of good sand next to the very calm river. The water was a bit chilly, but we waded anyway and had fun.

Playing in the river

Luke checking out the informational sign.

Where I-5 crosses the river.

Bravely wading in the cold weather!

Luke making a "sand angel"

Emmie playing it safe in the sand where it's not so cold!

I love where we live. It's beautiful!

Sun setting behind the freeway overpass.

Smiling for the camera in the cold water!

We headed back to the campsite after getting dried and changed. As I prepared to star the fire, Logan seemed really interested and asked if he could light the match. On his very first try, he lit the match, but when it started to burn too hot by his fingers, he dropped it into the fire. Fortunately, we had lots of good kindling and a little "log house" that lit up quickly and produced a nice warm fire. After some tasty s'mores and getting dressed in pajamas, the kids went off to bed, one by one. Surprisingly, Suzanna was able to get Emmelise in bed and asleep (in a pack-n-play) without any trouble at about 9:00 p.m. as it was getting dark. The boys were a little more reluctant to go to sleep, as they were used to me going to sleep at the same time as them in the past. But eventually, they were all tucked in, so Suzanna and I got to enjoy some quiet time by the dying fire before we climbed in our own sleeping bags for the night.

Fire and headlamps

It was a warm night, and we slept relatively well for a camping trip. Most importantly, we all stayed warm enough (maybe it was the fact that five of us were packed into a four-man tent!) but Logan was up by the time the sun had lit up the sky by about 6:00 a.m. Emmie was still sleeping soundly, so I hurried and got him out of the tent.

Emmie snoozing in her pack-n-play.

Suzanna spoiled us all with a tasty hot breakfast! It was way better than cold cereal and granola bars like we've done on the last couple trips. We had french toast, sausage, and hot chocolate! Good stuff!