Camping for the first time

We camped, in a tent, with a short trail walk to the bathrooms and Antonio survived! Not only did he survive but he loved it! We only had one camping "malfunction"; our air mattress broke soon after we got it in the tent. The cap where the air goes in broke off so all the air within seconds, was out. We tried it out the first night without and managed but decided to send Albert in to town to get us a new one. Luckily, going in to town wasn't to far and was easy. We slept much better the second night even with thunder, lightening and rain. :) Besides the last nights "weather" we were lucky and had great weather!

We went camping to Ike Kinswa state park which is just south of Chehalis.  We met one of my best friends, Erin and her family (husband Pete and son Jack, who is only a few month older than Antonio) there. She was in charge of picking the location which she did great at! They live in Beaverton, Oregon so it was somewhat in the middle. They are becoming big time campers and luckily had all the camping supplies. We had a tent and sleeping bags and thats it. No joke. They brought everything else! We stayed two nights, which was perfect for Antonio's first time camping and Albert and I's first time in forever.

The location was great. It was right on Mayfield Lake and all the campsites were nestled in beneath tall trees that kept all the campsites cool with some filtered sunlight. It did, however, make it pretty dark once the sun went down. Antonio was not fond of that. At all. The first night he was tired and went to bed in the tent on the early side with his new mini lantern. The second night he was up after it got dark and we could tell it was spooking him. We got him ready for bed and he once again crawled right in with his latern and fell asleep clutching it. So cute. On one side of the road was the campsites and the other was the actual State Park. Saturday after nap time, the three of us went to check out the park. It had a nice swimming area, playground and picnic area. Turned out the walk was a bit long, about a mile and half each way, but Antonio walked the whole way and did great!

Exploring with Papa!

Jack and Antonio had a lot of fun driving their trucks all around in the dirt, exploring in the bushes/woods by our campsite and throwing rocks into the lake. Even though there was a complete burn ban, not even campfires, we still had fun! The one plus of no campfires was that we didn't stink of smoke! :) It did suck cooking hot dogs and s'mores over a propane stove though. Oh well. The three of us may try to do a mini camping trip to a park really close to us still this Summer; we'll see. We will however, do more camping next Summer! We had a lot of fun with Erin, Pete and Jack and wish we saw them more often.

Antonio had so much fun with them he insisted on being in their family pic! 

Saying good bye to Jack!