Camping Fun - Part 1 of 2

This weekend we went camping at Douthat State Park. It was so much fun. This was sort of a trial run because we are going camping in a few weeks at Harper's Ferry (3 hrs away). We had nothing planned and we have never taken our kids so we needed to test the waters a little bit. They did great and we had so much fun.

Chuck took off a day from work and we left early on Friday morning. Douthat is less than as hour away so this would give us most of the day on Friday to enjoy the Park. We would have loved to stay in the Lakeside campground but they were full. Whiteoak was a fine option because the sites were very spread out. We chose our site and started setting up camp. The girls loved climbing in the tent. Leland called it her castle for a while. The bad part was the sites were all loose gravel. The girls have bruises on the their shins and knees from crawling around in the tent. Lucy even got a big knot on her forehead from diving off the air mattress.

Quote of the weekend: We had been there maybe an hour and Leland says, "Mommy how do we watch television in the forest?
Note to self: Turn on the TV less, go camping more.

A river runs through the park and has some gorgeous dams to create the lake. As we were driving around checking out the park we saw a baby black bear running through the forest. We watched him for a little while but could not get the camera out to take any pictures.

We (actually Leland) decided swimming was # 1 priority once she saw the beach area. It had a playground on the sand with buttons on several poles that would turn on sprinklers on the equipment. Leland enjoyed being in the lake a lot more than the slippery playground. There was also a platform out in deep water with a slide and diving board. Leland and Chuck enjoyed playing in the water while Lucy and I hung out on the beach. Lucy was extremely tired but put up with us dragging her around very well.

Lucy finally got to take a short nap in the car while Leland played on a playground and Chuck tried to do a little fishing with Leland's Barbie fishing pole. With no success fishing we headed back to our campsite for dinner.

We cooked hot dogs on the campfire which I think is one of my favorite things to eat. We took a walk to the small river that ran next to the campground to take a few pictures. We then enjoyed some roasted marshmallows and S'mores.

Leland went to bed just fine because she was so tired. Lucy on the other hand thought it was so fun to be by us she just wanted to play. We will take her pack-n-play next time and I think she will have an easier time sleeping.