Ward Campout

The ward campout was July 23-24 at Stubb Stewart State Park by Vernonia (meaning on the east side of the Coastal Range). We borrowed Rachel and Josh's tent, as usual, and, after a too-long detour to buy the girls sleeping bags from a Craigslister, we reached the park and pitched our tent.


Kip made a fabulous dutch-oven dinner of sausage, potatoes and eggs.


The kids enjoyed playing in the field and on the play structure with all the other ward kids.

That night the wind blew like it was trying to carry us away in our tents. I stayed awake listening to it tear at our tent until Kip finally got up around 3:30 and took off the rain fly. Sometime after that I slept and the next thing I knew Becca was laughing and poking me in the face and the hot sun was shining down through the uncovered top of the tent. Aaah, morning. No hot-chocolate for us - our friends who had planned on making it couldn't keep their camp stove lit in the wind. And it wasn't cold enough to want it anyway.

 

After a wonderful breakfast provided by the activities committee, we decided to go for a hike.


We found some interesting trail markers - little printed foot images taped to Popsicle sticks and placed along the trails. We followed them and found a bucket full of white poker chips. We let the kids each take one, hoping there were so many there they wouldn't be missed. The kids were thrilled.


Later we discovered that the poker chips were the end of a scavenger hunt put together by the people at the Cowboy Days festival. We drove up to check it out before heading home and the kids got to learn about fancy western horse riding. Becca especially loved it and was cute riding her horse. It wasn't always right-side-up, but she still enjoyed it and got a lot of laughs from other festival attendees.