catching up...camping

On Labor Day weekend Susan invited us to go camping with their family down in Big Sur! Big Sur is down Hwy 1, down the coast of Cali near all the Redwood trees...aka Gorgeous!!! We have a tent that we had used only once (before kids...) so we thought it sounded wonderful! They have a HUGE camper and offered to let us sleep upstairs but we decided to try the tent thing and had a blast! It was warm enough we didn't freeze and it was fun to all snuggle together at night.

The camp site was right near this stream (aka FREEZING) but super fun for the kids. Ry even had to brave the cold to go down the "rapids" with bud.


Mckinley had fun playing in the water and trying to stay up while walking along the bumpy rocks.

Beautiful area...

It was Susan's bday so we found a really cool resturant that we went and had dessert at over looking the ocean. It was so nice, we had a fire behind us and watched the fog roll in at night, while sipping hot chocolate and eating dessert...yum!

gorgeous views...

Of course, the best part...fire and smores!

(I was trying out my night setting on the camera...kind of fun I thought!)

trying to dodge smoke and cook at the same time

Daddy giving everyone rides (I think he wants one now...)

And Harrison I KNOW wants one of these now! He had such a great time driving around in these! They have two of them and drove around every where! What was so cute was he wanted to drive Mckinley around and she was so content to sit right by him wherever he went, holding onto the phone for dear life!

Such a wonderful family!! Susan is actually the person that kind of got Ryan and I together in Jerusalem, she was my roommate over there and now lives about an hour away, and we actually live in her ward that she grew up in! Small world...
'

On Sunday we tried to have a little spiritual time, I taught the kids a lesson, Susan taught us and we shared some thoughts...

We went on a little hike as well and looked at the beauty around us

we found a family reunion of lady bugs it looks like

On Monday before we left we stopped at a beach (we had tried to go on Saturday but after spending forever trying to get all the gear, hiking almost there, when everyone kept telling us its too windy for the kids, so we turned around and finally made it back.) in Carmel on the way home. It was pretty but super windy still and the water was so cold!!! I miss you OBX!!

Charity has downs and she the sweetest little girl. It is so fun to see her grow and learn and how amazing her family is with her...what an angel!

But we still had a great time! We ate ice cream, made more smores (someone left a little fire going). and tried to play in the water for a couple minutes before we froze or started to blow away!

All in all it was extremely successful! We also played games, watched movies (in their camper), had fondue, a ton of food, a lot of playing in the dirt and some good conversations! We definitely want to start to do it more often!