Beach Camping

My good friend Janae is a planner.  She is detailed, capable, and on-the-ball.  I am so glad we are friends. 

She planned a camping trip for all of us -- right on the beach!  It our first outdoor adventure with our little man, and it turned out to be perfect in that we were actually still in complete civilaztion.  It felt a little more like camping in your backyard ... if your backyard includes a lot of sand, firepits, trees, and a vast ocean.

When Mac wasn't rolling around the tent, he was in the sand.  That kid was grubby and dirty and absolutely in heaven.  Except of course, when he was screaming because we tried to get him to do ... anything, actually.

Sweet, smiling, happy, strawberry blonde Molly enjoyed a little sand herself.  And I only heard her cry at night ... which you couldn't blame her, it was 40 degrees and chilly.  Mac woke up at one point and Mark attempted to stuff him into his sleeping bag, but Mac wiggled out and came to me, and slept with me for the rest of the night in my little mummy bag.  I don't think I slept longer than two hours if you add up all my dozing, but it was actually incredibly ... special.  I've never ever slept with Mac before.  I definitely don't want to do it again, but still, it was a memorable night.

Janae was in charge of breakfast, and boy did she deliver!  German pancakes in the dutch oven??  They were delicious, and had just a hint of that firewood taste.  Good work Janae.



And of course Mac had to have some morning eggs.



As it warmed up, Mark and Taylor ventured out to perfect their boomarang technique.  Mac got sick of lounging in the sand with me and Janae, and we all decided to join the boys.

We spent most of the time watching them try to get the boomerang -- and my softball -- out of the tree.

I did lunch, and it consisted of hotdogs.  But not just any hotdogs!!  Mark made a point to annouce what a huge moment this was, that I had been talking about my Mexico hotdogs ever since he had known me.  And so we had a moment of silence and feasted up ... bacon-wrapped hotdogs!  If I was truly attempting to recreate my Mexican moment in heaven, I wouldn've topped it with guacamole, grilled onions, garlic, and a bit of sour cream.  As it was, ketchup was still really really good.

In the afternoon we ventured out to find some tide pools, but ended up turning back because a fierce wind picked up.

Rain was forecasted for the night, and our tents couldn't seem to keep their rain covers on.  After a blustery attempt at getting dinner going, we decided to pack everything up and leave late that night.

My dinner attempt consisted of tin-foil dinners and cheesey dutch oven potatoes.  The potatoes were fantastic.

The tin foil dinners, not so much.  UGH.  My failure was practically complete, but thankfully there were enough potatoes to fill everyone up.  But I will say that I am a person who learns through trial and error, and this error definitely taught me enough to make my next attempt a complete success.  Hollands, I'll make it up to you.

After we had everything packed, we roasted everything we could and talked until we were just too tired.  The greatest discovery of this entire trip was brought to us by Janae:  fire-roasted breadsticks!  We wrapped dough around these giant sticks and cooked it to a golden brown, then coated it thoroughly in butter and cinnamon sugar.  The results were divine.

And so ended our first-ever campout.  We may have left one night early, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are determined to do it one more time ... later.  When it's super warm.