Camping in Washington

Last week Ellie and I drove all the way to Washington to go camping with my family. Unfortunately, Greg didn't go because he had to work, which we were really sad about. He and Lindsay were the only ones not there. :( The drive took 14 hours to get to my brother and sister-in-law's house in Monroe, WA, which is about 30 minutes from Seattle. Ellie did amazingly well, but she only slept a total of about an hour and a half out of the 14 hours! I don't know why she does not sleep in cars. Once again, thank you Baby Einstein for keeping my baby entertained!

The next morning we drove another 2 hours up to the gorgeous Cascades to go camping there. Our campsite was so beautiful. The forests there are so thick and green. We camped Monday - Thursday and had so much spending time with my family. Ellie slept like a champ the entire time, but was sad because all she wanted to do was crawl around. Luckily, I went to DI before we left to get her some clothes that I really didn't care if she got dirty. I let her crawl around a couple of times and she was in heaven, but this was the result...

I laid down that blue tarp for her to crawl on, but all she would do was head straight for the dirt. I eventually gave up and let her roam all over the campsite.

On Tuesday we decided to go for what I thought was a nice leisure hike. Keep in mind that we had 7 little kids ages 6 and under. Well I must have forgot that my brother, Wes, is a major mountain climber (he just climbed Mt. Ranier!) and his idea of a leisure hike is completely different than my idea. He wanted to do a 6 miler, but the road was closed so that 6 miler would have turned into 8 miles. We all decided against that for obvious reasons and went on a different hike instead. Here is Ellie and I right before we began.

Before we started we noticed A LOT of flies everywhere. I thought they would go away once we started hiking, but I was wrong. The hike was really pretty, but the flies ruined it. Seriously everyone started going crazy. I'm pretty sure that the only child that didn't cry was my nephew, Jacob. There were biting flies too which bit a couple of people including my poor little niece. She freaked out and wanted to turn around. I wanted to too, but nobody else did for some crazy reason so we kept on going. Finally everyone had enough of the constant cloud of flies flying around each of us, so we turned around. It was so nice to get back in the car with AC and NO flies!!

Anyway, we had tons of fun up there! I love being in the outdoors because it reminds me of camping with my mom and dad when we were little. We drove back to Utah on Friday. Ellie took one 30 minute nap and then slept from 9 -10 p.m. We didn't get in until 3 a.m. which means she was up from 10 until 3 a.m.! I put her right to bed and she didn't wake up the next day until 12:15. We are back to normal life now and done with vacations for a while. Thanks family for going and making the trip fun! Now I know that I can camp with a baby and without my husband, but I would much rather do it with him!