Jackson Lake Camping

The kids were super excited about the campsite that I had picked out. I had looked at all the sites last summer and had found this one to be the best. It was a hike-in site and was completely surrounded by trees. We felt like we were in a little den. The kids pretended that they had hide outs and climbed the trees.

I quickly realized that I had no cell service, which gave me some stress relief from getting emails and messages. I was able to just enjoy the wilderness experience with my kiddos.

Lola woke up barking in the night. I told her to be quiet and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I noticed that a fox had taken our bread, veggie chips, beef jerky, and dog food. The fox actually took the top off of the tub. Very smart, "Fantastic Mr. Fox". Lola was obviously barking to notify us. I figure out that I could put heavy objects over our food and that kept the fox away.

The pelicans were beautiful to watch every morning. A new family arrived with a 12 year old boy and 9 year old girl. They were staying for just 1 night. The kids quickly made friends with them. The father commented, "You sure have this camping thing figured out! You are smart!"

I read to them every night at home and camping. A few families walked by and smiled when they saw us all enjoying, "Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children". Connor told me that this was the best book he has ever read! We also rehearsed for Connor and Camilla's play, "Harriet Patter and the Broom Closet of Wonder" They even brought their wands to practice their roles!

For some reason, dead fish kept washing up on the shore. I took the kids down here at night and they thought it was so cool to run around in the dark with flashlights. They pretended that they had light sabers and had battles.

The kids really enjoyed swimming and jumping over waves. I practiced open water swimming while they played. I swam a mile every day. Sometimes, waves would come up and splash into my mouth, but I never got sick.

I was really proud of Connor for going up and asking other boys to play, since his sisters play girly games. He ended up meeting a group of boys that live in Franktown, near us. He told them, "My Mom swims really far and I swim triathlons" So cute!

A father walked up to me and commented on what a well behaved dog I had and that she stayed right near our side the entire time. There was another dog named, "Chula", who came up and made friends with Lola.

The kids are so good at always finding fun things to do.

The kids loved to take their breakfast down to the beach.

The kids are really interested in learning Spanish and I taught them a lot of new Spanish words while sitting around the campfire.

They started playing frisbee because it was windy and the frisbee flew really far.

When the kids weren't swimming, they were riding bikes. I was able to run with them while they rode bikes. One evening, we ran in a storm and they thought it was so cool that the wind pushed them on their bikes.

It was very quiet and peaceful in our site. There weren't many people and it was so nice. I let the kids and Lola have the big tent and I slept next to them in a small 2 person tent. Connor woke up in the morning and crawled in my tent. I got up and he fell back to sleep.

On our last evening, I thought, "I could stay here forever". Everyone is so friendly and social and it is so quiet. Everyone out here recognizes the importance of removing our families from technology and modern conveniences. We live in such a busy world and this allows us to slow down and look around at how beautiful this world is.

On the way home, we stopped at "Good Times" to get ice cream and they gave Lola a free ice cream treat. She deserved it!