Camping at Bear Creek Lake

What better way to spend Memorial Day weekend when you live near DC than by getting out of town and camping?!  We organized a trip with the Zencuchs to camp at Bear Creek Lake AND it was the first time committing to three nights for either family!!!  We skipped out early on Friday to make sure we got two sites next to each other, and it paid off because the campground filled up quickly!  We chose our sites, unloaded our gear, ate a VERY casual lunch at the gas station "restaurant" at the front of the park, and then I headed to the grocery store.  

The ATP does an awesome job hauling our gear for a camping weekend, but I can't quite make food fit in there...  The boys explored the park while I secured provisions :)  The Zencuchs arrived just before dinner, and once we were all set up, we cooked a super fancy first night meal of HOT DOGS!  :)

Izzy is a Girl Scout, so she showed us several things we don't have as part of our camping routine.  The main thing was using "real" dishes and washing them!  LOL  The boys loved helping with the dishes... "Helping" is a loose term... ;)

First time in a big boy sleeping bag!!!

My baby...sniff, sniff!

Campfire: Night One

S'mores for some good friends :)

Card games by lantern

Morning #2!  We all slept pretty well (Josh and I tried out some new sleeping pads, and while they still don't provide as much support as a real mattress, I noticed a big difference!), and the boys were up early, but not as early as I was scared of--HA!  

Not too many toys accompany us while camping: some small trucks, a set of Army men, and some digging tools.

This little brother had a great time playing in the dirt!

Quite the set-up!

The campground was really quite nice!  The park itself had a pretty extensive list of activities each day.  The first day had archery on the list, so Jackie, Izzy and Jackson signed up :)

While archery was continuing, Teresa, Katey and I took Graham to the playground by the lake.  He had a great time, and then the rest of the folks joined us for some Frisbee!

Finding worms :)

I just love this picture of Graham and one of his favorites :)

Playing Graham's new dinosaur volcano game!  After lunch, everyone except Graham and me headed out for some hiking and caching--Izzy has a Geocaching Badge she can earn for Girl Scouts!  Graham laid right down for a nap, and I got in some quiet time with my book!

Teresa and I split up meals, so we made breakfast the first morning (eggs, bacon, sausage and bagels) and she made dinner the second night--an amazing pot of spaghetti in the Dutch Oven!

We supplied the first night's treat: traditional s'mores OR Campfire Cones!  Everyone enjoyed experimenting with some personal concoctions...

Overall, a success!  An activity AND a yummy treat!

Morning #2!  We were up on the early-side again, so we went for a family adventure around the lake to find a few geocaches.

It was really a beautiful morning, and Graham was excited that we found a spot for stick and rock throwing!

So handy that Jackson is old enough to take a picture, so it looks like Josh and I are out and about as a couple sometimes ;)

The serene lake before kiddos are splashing and families are boating

Checking in on what Jackie is doing

Camp Kitchen area complete with covering :)

Teresa brought things to make pancakes for our breakfast, but the container has a little explosion...  It delayed things a bit, but it was worth it--so yummy!

Pancake FIENDS!

Sadly, the fun was all a bit much for Graham, and after getting in some trouble and having a time-out, he tantrummed his way to an early nap...

Smiles are back for lunch time!

The campground got pretty quiet as most people decided to pack up and leave due to the less than ideal weather forecast... We decided to stick it out, but we did try to organize as much as we could in case we had to make a quick escape in the middle of the night.  

The kids enjoyed an activity the park hosted where they could use nets to catch things in the lake and check them out in buckets

I got started on our night for dinner-- One Pot Sausage, Potato and Veggie Dinner!  We really like to top it all off with Heniz 57 sauce!

We really enjoyed our last night--the campground was quiet, the weather was finally pleasant, and we just enjoyed relaxing!

Jackson and Izzy found a huge stick that looked like a hammer, so they spent a good while having a contest of who could hold up Thor's Hammer the longest!

Teresa brought Jiffy Pop and M&Ms for our treat this night.  Jason did struggle making the popcorn over the super-hot fire Josh had built!  I'm pretty sure he used the camp stove for the third try...

Love this guy

Fire Master!

Check out how HOT that fire is!!!  The forecast was just 100% storms, but we ended up getting just one or two set of showers.  We joked that Josh made the fire hot enough to change the weather!

We all lasted through the night, and got packed up pretty early on in the morning.  What a fun weekend with friends!  I think we all agreed we would camp at this park again!

A Geocaching Camping Weekend!

We were VERY ambitious this weekend!  Josh spotted a night caching event that he wanted to attend, and it was piggybacking on the summer picnic hosted by NoVAGO (Northern Virginia Geocaching Organization).  The picnic and night caching were to take place in a picnic area at Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship, so there was also the option to stay and camp in the field adjacent to the picnic area.  We decided to do it all including a Cache In Trash Out (CITO) the morning after camping!

We left our house armed with camping gear, a picnic lunch (which was redundant due to the NoVAGO picnic, but we had mis-read the hours), snacks, and energy to do a serious amount of hiking and caching before the picnic!

Snack break!

We ran into some fellow cachers towards the end of our morning plan, so that was fun to search for the last couple with extra pairs of eyes.  We also got to have a family photo taken as we walked across the huge fallen tree!

The picnic was really fun, and we met some really nice people!  There weren't many other kids, but Jackson was a rockstar, and he actually took over our ice breaker activity and went up to other people to get the answers!  The boys were very good and of course, made friends!  After the picnic, Daddy took off for some more caching while I took the boys to seek some relief in the air conditioned car on the drive to Walmart!  We LOVE our Prius, but sometimes our space is so limited, and we have to go shopping for food after unloading some other things... ;)  We procured the necessary items for dinner, breakfast and some snacking.  We drove back to camp and I proceeded to set up our tent ALL BY MYSELF!  Josh gave me the choice to do whatever I would rather do, and after a morning caching and Walmart with both of them, I was happy to set up the tent by myself while he supervised the boys running off energy!  We enjoyed some dinner and then I worked on putting Graham to bed.  

You can sort of see the outline of our tent in the sunset...

Happy with this perch while Graham snoozed and Josh and Jackson went off in search of some night caches!  What they found sounded really neat, but I was happy for some time with my book in the beautiful night!

Everyone did pretty well in the tent.  We were up early, of course, and got all packed up before it was time for the CITO.  It was another hot day, and we were all a little extra tired, so we wore down quicker than usual during the CITO.  It also wasn't the typical one we have attended.  Jackson LOVES going to these particular events with Josh, because sometimes there are the fancy trash picker-upper-pokers...  So, yes, we are used to clearing areas of trash.  This particular mission was more about trail maintenance, so Josh was in charge of the hedge clippers to trim anything that might hit someone on the trail whether they were walking or riding a horse (these trails were used a lot for horseback riding).  Jackson was pretty helpful with clearing the brush that Josh cut down, but Graham was pretty much over the whole thing before we even started, AND he wanted to be carried!  We pushed through, and all four of us were never happier to get in the car in search of lunch!  Everyone got recharged enough with McDonalds that our moods improved, and then the boys and I snoozed while Daddy drove us home :)