Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Pine Lake Campground

We asked for a week off of work in August to ensure we got at least one good camping adventure in for the summer. It was cool cause my parent's were able to get the time off, as well as Dallin and Laura. Tanner wanted to try someplace new, and long story short, we settled on Pine Lake Campground. I was nervous because there weren't a lot of pictures and so I wasn't really sure if it was going to be someplace cool or not. It was more noted as a hot spot for ATV stuff and so that made me nervous (not that that is bad, just not as hikey and mountainy as I was hoping maybe? The map view from above made it looks kind of barren and I was just nervous. Well, I was stressed out for nothing because it was absolutely beautiful! Although it was a bit rainy when we were setting up camp.
 

Harvey rode while camp got set up. Grammy kept the littles dry inside the truck.


Home sweet home.


How many men does it take...

Gaming in the tent while we waited out the rain.

 

 




 

 



Sleepy mom face but his smile is too cute to not include.


Jacks!
My heaven.

 I think the next morning we had some decent weather and decided to go check out the lake. We got a late start so kids got pretty grumpy and tired and hungry pretty fast so we didn't stay long. We were going to go back but we got some more afternoon showers.










The next morning we decided to head into Bryce Canyon NP.  Tanner had never been there and it was only 30 minutes from our campsite. Awesome luck too, because it was free day! And the weather really was awesome. Held out for us perfectly! 















This picture is funny - it looks like Harvey is being carried by Tanner too, but I think he's on my dad's shoulders. Greta's face is just cute. She loved that carrier and the bjorn. She would just kick out her arms and legs and squeal and squeal! She loves to be outside!
 








 Harvey got a fever real bad the night before and the morning so he was not the happiest of campers for the whole hike. His face in the first fam pic below here is hilarious to me.


After this hike we went and ate just outside of the park and then drove down and hiked a really short little one called Mossy Cave. Dallin stayed back with the little ones.











Sorry - there are SO many pictures! Wow. I didn't even realize it. Hiking day was way fun! We got a good amount of rain that evening I think. We got lots of rain during the week but it really did cooperate so that we were able to do lots of fun things - we got to eat and do s'mores and walk and sit by the fire, etc etc. So despite it being a little more wet than ideal camping weather, it was lovely. Here's a bunch more random pictures from the week that I'm too lazy to try and make more organized :) Well, this first group is walking down through the campsite. Harvey kept wanting to ride his bike real far away and we ended up down by the bridge to the lake several times!






I love this picture! Everyone is passed out but Greta who is just looking straight up wondering what's going on :)





All the heart eyes :)



In efforts to do dutch oven not in the rain, a large hole ended up in the rain fly thing, so we had drive through dinner service.
 





The whole trip was awesome. So much fun! I love camping. It was fun with the van (I still LOVE our springbar and tent camping) but it was a bit convenient with the kids and rain. And I'm so glad our campsite was cool - we all said we'd definitely go back!