Oh, a camping we will go.............

Over the 4th of July weekend we escaped the smoke and heat of Chico and left for a fun weekend at Little Grass Valley Reservoir. This was our first time camping there, and we had a blast! We took Madison, our niece with us, it was her first time camping. She decided it was quite a fun activity, and especially liked the smores. She would have stayed a few more nights, but, I, personally was ready for a shower! The kids spent most of their time in the water or riding their bikes like maniacs around the campground. We had several cases of walking the bike back to camp, holding a knee, elbow or hand, with tears making clean streaks on dirty faces. Luckily we had our boy scouts who had first aid kits. Go boys! Way to be prepared! The kids were really enjoying being outside since we had been keeping them cooped up because of the smokey conditions. Mark had the unfortunate experience of feeling every rock we thought we had cleared under our tent. His air mattress had a hole in it, and even though I offered, he wouldn't trade. He knew my shoulder would have been cranky if we added rocks to the camping experience.....what a sweet guy :) One night Mollie woke up crying, so we had the wonderful (although getting out of a warm sleeping bag was hard) opportunity of sitting outside in the middle of the night looking at all the stars in the sky. We talked about what a wonderful world Heavenly Father and Jesus created for us to enjoy. That has to be that best part of camping, is having the time to enjoy the creation without the lights and sounds of the city. We truly are blessed!

We did learn one thing, and that is that Nancy is not handy with the wave runner. First, I decided to take Zach on a fun "grown-up" fast ride, we were having fun, made a quick turn and both of us had a refreshing (actually freezing) bath. Luckily the key was attached to my wrist, so we didn't have to swim too far to get it back. Later that day, I had Melissa on the tube behind the wave runner, with Mollie on with me, we started taking off and instead of Melissa being pulled slowly behind, she made a quick return to the wave runner thanks to the rope being sucked up inside the engine. Yes.....we were out in the lake stranded! After a while of waving the orange flag at several boats, with no help coming our way, I remembered (duh...) that the orange flag tells them to stay away! By this time, we had drifted close enough to shore that swimming and pulling the wave runner might get us somewhere. We ended up being rescued by a houseboat, and Mark had a little repair work to do :) Our hero......good thing he likes to take tools along wherever we go. The next day, Mark took me out for a quick spin and ended up dumping me, so really even though I didn't have a shower, I did get two baths!

We came back to Chico to find the smoke still around, and now 9 days later, it is still smokey, but at least it hasn't been raining ashes like last week. Hopefully the firefighters will get a hold on all these crazy fires. What a fire year to remember!

Melissa helps set up the tent.....watch those fingers!

Madison decides watermelon is a necessity of camping! Forget the

showers, just make sure to pack watermelon!

Surfer kids!

Mollie and Daisy take a cool dip!

There are bike trails, (some paved) are throughout the campground.

This is where the kids shed a few skin cells and a lot of energy!

Zach, our outdoorsman at heart, is a great help to have along!

A prepared hiker never leaves camp without the hiking stick!