A Camping We Will Go!

Noella enjoyed her first true camping experience. She is such a lucky little baby. Not only did her first camping trip involve a gorgeous campsite along the Lewis River in Washington State with her mama, daddy and doggie, Zeb; but she also got to spend that time with new friends who will hopefully be a part of her life for many years to come.

We headed North across the Columbia into Washington friday afternoon, where we traveled curvy roads through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We arrived at our camping spot, which our trusty friends, Meredith, Dan and Autumn Graham saved for us on the busiest camping weekend of the year. It was the perfect spot for two couples with babies. There were three amazing river waterfalls all within hiking distance of our campsite. The trail that goes along the Lewis River is 33 miles long and is supposedly an epic mountain bike trail. Adam and I can't wait to go back and bring the mountain bikes (and perhaps some loving family to watch our sweet baby girl....?)

Needless to say, we overpacked. How can you not on your first camping trip with your 8 month old? I bought a budget 6 person tent the week before.  This tent is more like a small house.  I should have taken pictures of the inside. Noella slept snugly in her pack 'n play (well, maybe as snugly as she could have in a cold tent). She woke with the sun...... or maybe she beat the sun to it. None of us slept much, but what did we expect?

It was really cold and early in this picture. 

You guys aren't trying to sleep are you? 

We all took a lovely 5 mile hike saturday to the Middle and Upper Falls, which I, sadly, did not get pictures of.  The Lower Falls were just about a quarter mile from our campsite which was so fun! We all played by the falls saturday afternoon.

Dan fly fishing

Lower Falls

The babies even got their floor/ground time in. We found this perfect huge old blanket for she and Autumn to crawl around on. It was all in vain though, as Noella immediately crawled off of it and onto the dirt, where she proceeded to try and put pine needles, rocks, leaves and sticks in her mouth. Here, we were able to persuade her to stay and play with Autumn on the blanket for at least a little while :)

We have definitely missed camping, and while it is MUCH more work with a baby (especially an extremely active 8 month old), we were encouraged to have to it work as well as it did. I forsee much more camping in Noella's future. And how wonderful to have shared our first experience with wonderful friends. We truly feel blessed!