Preparation

Tomorrow we leave on our annual camping trip to Cama Beach on Camano Island here in Western Washington. Woot! Woot! This year our family is staying 5 nights and while I'm excited, it's a lot of work. Now don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that ALL vacations are work to prepare but it seems when you have to pack your own food for the week, it adds to the to do list.

The other difference to this trip is there are a number of families coming, some friends, some friends of friends and a whole passel of children. We divide the dinner meal up so if you choose, you can join in on the group meals and only have to cook one meal for several families instead of dinner every night. This has been a great way to meal plan with friends and be completely lazy the rest of vacation. I'm making dinner for Wednesday evening and our meal is BBQ chicken sandwiches on biscuits, coleslaw, baked beans, chips and fruit. I cooked up 6.5 pounds of chicken breasts in my slow cooker, shredded it and added more sauce before bagging it up and putting it in the freezer. The biscuits will be frozen too and I'm hoping will taste okay a few days later.

I must inform you the cabins are equipped with a refrigerator and electricity so I don't have to pack a cooler full of ice to keep my food frozen until I need it. I just have to pack my cooler with food and then I unpack it a couple of hours later once we check in. We go on this trip with some close friends and will meal share breakfast and our kids mooch off each other so I always pack extra snacks. It's only fair.

As our kids get bigger and the number of families joining increases, it lends to more activities and fun. This year we are having our own Olympics games. We have a professional event planner who has graciously offered to put together games. One of the mom's found plastic medals that each child will receive for participating, but they aren't just the cheesy, 'hey you played so you get a medal'. Each child will get a medal for best performance or funniest act. I'm really looking forward to watching the kids play the various games and have some fun.

I also picked up my crabbing license today as we are able to go crabbing two days during our trip. Mmmmm, crab fresh from the sea. One of the best parts of living in Seattle is fresh crab.  The weather is supposed to be fantastically sunny and I just can't wait.  Now to finish packing, packing, packing......

Day 207

Two families, three nights of camping, four parents and five children. How much stuff did we bring again?? For the next few nights we are having the privilege of staying at Cama Beach State Park in the waterfront cabins. Some dear friends of ours booked the cabins back in October of last year for these few days and invited us to go along. One of the neat perks of the camp site is no cars are allowed down by the cabins, so you must shuttle all your items down in the van. It only took one truck and one shuttle car to get all of us and our stuff down to the cabins. Let the vacation begin.

Day 206

This morning we headed to Camano Island State Park for our annual Sunday school class camping trip. Mike and I are only staying one night because of Mike's travel schedule, but one night in a tent is fine with me. Andy had been running around with all the other boys and was completely filthy at this point and he decided he needed a rest. Mom was just enjoying the fellowship with friends and not having to worry too much about what the kids were up too.