Wilson Fam Vacation 2013 - Fort Stevens Part 1

Early last month we took a trip with the entire Wilson clan to camp at Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon. I grew up camping here and had many fond (though fading) memories of the place so it was fun to bring our kids there. They had a BLAST! I came away from the trip desiring two things in our future home: a backyard for kids to run free, get dirty and explore and then secondly (and maybe most importantly), a mud room where they can strip down afterward around so that my house stays clean. :)

 Most of the time we were there, the weather looked like this so we beached in our winter coats and long pants.

 

 

 Uncle Josh didn't seem to mind the clouds though and went shirtless.

 

 A whole lotta gray, sort of like the weather

 Josh had good reason to take his shirt off because the boys were busy digging to China (they almost made it!)

 

 

 The campground is huge, complete with beach, bunkers (the fort) and tons of biking trails. I didn't get to bike but tried to keep up by running with the kids in the stroller. I'm proud to announce that it was here that Isla learned to rice a bike sans training wheels! She learned the balancing and steering skills on her strider but pedaling was proving a bit more challenging to master. My dad put training wheels on her bike for a mere 48 hours just so she could figure out how to pedal. Then off they both went! 

There was one day (while the training wheels were still on) when Graham let Isla bike all the downhill way to the beach. He had to get creative in getting her bike back to camp because of course she was too tired for the return trip...

The rest of the clan stayed a full 5 nights. Graham was unable to get the last 2 days off so we only stayed for 3 which turned out to be about as much as my 33 week pregnant body could have handled, even despite my luxurious accommodations.

In addition to beaching and biking, we spent a lot of the weekend doing one of my favorites: eating! Good food and good cookery was certainly not in short supply!

 

 

 

 
Grandpa Wilson even made us popcorn using my Grandpa Wilson's famous stove top popcorn maker. It was a HIT!

 Apparently we humans weren't the only ones enjoying the camp food. The world's most obese squirrel made friends with us REAL quickly.

 

 

It seems like someone should have been keeping an eye on the girl on the right below but her parents were both busy laughing their heads off and taking pictures and videos....

 

To be continued...