We took our first camping trip of the year last week. It was also our first trip using the trailer my family used as I was growing up. Grandma and Grandpa G gave us their suburban and their trailer after buying their fifth wheel. We'd been using their tent trailer but WOW what a difference! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa G! We had a great time! So great in fact that after our reservations at Fort Stevens were over we decided we needed one more night so we headed up to Grayland Beach for an extra night of fun.
Fort Stevens State Park was a great camp ground. There is a really nice paved bike trail that takes you out to the beach and even continues on further down the beach. There's a lake along the bike trail that has another trail going around it. It was really fun for the kids to ride on the trail and around the camping loops and a LOT of fun for us to be able to just ride out to the beach. The only problem with it was the mosquitos. Holy cow there were tons of them, I think if we had been in a different camping spot they might not have been so bad, we were in the shade almost the whole time. I have a TON of pictures, I haven't even gone through the ones Grandma G took. Enjoy!
Our first night in the trailer, ready to crash for the night after their bath.
It was a really nice beach, there's a section of it with the wreck of the Peter Iredale so it was fun to see that, for a couple of minutes at least. It had wonderfully clean water though.
Daddy really likes to play in the sand. He decided to build a pile with a little moat to "protect" you from the water when the waves came up. Dillon got really upset watching the waves wash around him but Kayda loved it.
Dillon's favorite thing to do was run from the waves, if you stopped he would say "again" and if you said no he'd move on to the next person, grab their hand and drag them out there.
Kayda loved everything about the beach she spent a lot of time wandering between activities.
Squishing the sand castle (she's actually in the air)
Grandpa was pretty worn out by the time we left the beach each day.
Grandpa was dancing around but everytime I pulled up the camera he stopped, pretty logical... Daddy kept going.
We tried biking up to the South Jetty but the bike trail didn't go the whole way, you had to ride out on the road, it was quite a ways from camp and Daddy was towing the bike trailer. We ended up driving up to it. While we were there Daddy picked Kayda up to climb up to the top of the jetty. Well she lost her sandal down into one of the holes between the rocks. These are her horse sandals that we're talking about and she is very attached to them. She of course got very upset so we of course decided we needed to try to get it. I stuck my leg down in the hole to try to grab it with my toes, no go. Daddy did the same then decided to start moving the smaller rocks around to get closer (if the jetty fails we know who to blame). Eventually Daddy managed to find a stick (which Grandpa was telling us to do the whole time we were just being ridiculous, myself included). Daddy managed to rescue the sandal.
At the beach there is a very steep section before you get down from the parking lot (which is where the bike trail ends) Daddy decided that it was fun to jump off of it. Kayda saw him and wanted to do it as well. After Kayda did it, Dillon wanted to. Though he never got into it the way she did.
Kayda found a stick and decided to write in the sand. Without any prompting she wrote her name. Then proceeded to write our little family's names. I basically just had to tell her the letters on the other names. She writes hers all the time.
After writing our names she decided to put everyone in a circle. Notice Grandma's circle, then check out Grandpa's circle.
Dillon loved to be out in the water, if he was in someones arms or holding someone's hand. Daddy had a great time getting soaked so he could bring Dillon out into the waves.
Grandpa introduced the kids to the woods right behind our campsite. They had a great time being explorers, especially when they went through the paths to the bathroom.
This is at Fort Stevens itself, the historic part of it.
Grandpa showed Dillon and Kayda how to use their flashlights to look into all the dark rooms. The kids had a great time with it. It made me a little nervous in certain parts because there were holes in the floor. It was hard to keep the kids with us because they wanted to run off with their flashlights.
Notice Kayda giving her horse a piggy-back ride.
Grandpa hid the horse in his vest and then Kayda decided that it was cold so she made Grandpa zip up his vest to keep the horse warm.
Flying a kite.
The kids helped us build a sand castle and decorate it with pretty shells. They liked it enough that they chose NOT to destroy it by jumping on it.
Snuggled up and ready for a movie before bed. After this Kayda asked to do it each of the remaining nights. It only happened once, it will have to become a tradition.
Friday morning we went to the Astoria Maritime Museum. Unfortunately on the way there Dillon got car sick. Daddy had to drive over to the store to get Dillon some shorts and he had to wear his coat so he wouldn't be shirtless. I felt so awful for him, of course it was the one time I didn't have a change of clothes packed so I didn't have something fresh for him to change into. Despite getting so miserably sick he was still able to pull it together and have a great time in the museum looking at the boats. Kayda and Dillon really liked going on the big ship and seeing where the crew slept and ate and cooked etc.
Back at the beach (we spent most of our time there).
Daddy and I built a sand obstacle course. The kids LOVED it. We'll definitely be doing that every time we go to the beach.
The Wreck of the Peter Iredale, this was the ONE night we could see the sunset. We didn't get rained on though so that's fine by me.
We didn't get enough there so we went over to Grayland Beach. It was a really nice campground with a relatively short walk out to the beach. Be warned though the beach is very wide and flat so once you get to it it's still a ways out to the water. The kids especially enjoyed looking for crab parts (shells, arms etc) with Grandpa.
We saw this sign along the road on headed towards Westport. We also saw a plant nursery called the "Pot Shed." What are these people thinking?
