Camping at Priest Lake

Wait a minute...before we begin, are those rays shining down from heaven? I think they were.
We made our first trip to Priest Lake this weekend. I've heard a lot of amazing reports about Priest Lake and camping at Priest Lake. I have not ever heard a bad report about camping at Priest Lake. Not even when the mosquitos were thick enough to require a can of bug spray per day, the report was still great. So we decided to try it out, and we were not disappointed!

The drive up to the campsite was not all that different from driving around Northern Idaho...it was beautiful, but not much to write home about. Based on the drive I expected the campground to be a bit wooded, and stripped of every ounce of firewood within a 1/4 mile. When we finally pulled into the campground, however, I was surprised to find a very clean, very generously spaced campground. Looking into the woods around the area I saw minimally impacted forest with green velvet growing on everything touching the forest floor. Immediately I knew we were in for a great time!

We went up Thursday afternoon, and set up camp in one of the last two available "first come, first serve" camp sites. I had worried that the non-reservable sites would be the worst in camp, but after several bike rides around the camp, I would take only one or two other sites over the one we got.

As the sky darkened on Caitin and Jamie enjoyed using the flashlight and lantern to explore.

Life would not be livable without bedtime stories.

After a bit of morning preparation by the early riser in the family, this scene developed on Friday morning. Let's take a closer look at how perfect our little family is...

Yup, a bit of scripture reading over the morning hot cocoa...

And have you ever seen such a smile? The only thing that would make the morning better would be some buttermilk pancakes. Oh, wait...

yup, got those too!

We set one rule for this campout: No hurry. (we use that word too much at home, so it was banned from this trip)

We hiked with the girls on a beautiful trail, swam in the lake twice, ate amazing food, rode our bikes all over the campground, took naps, played games, and avoided any "wolfez". We love Priest Lake!

PS: We didn't use an ounce of bug spray. We killed several bees that hung around the picnic table, but no mosquitos for us!

A Little Announcement!

Tonight we welcomed the newest member to our family:

Nickel!

The Astles like McCall

We got together with the Astle family this last week for some bonding in McCall, Idaho. We were blessed with beautiful weather and great company! Here are some highlights: The condo's had a pool where we relaxed after the drive.

Jamie helped me prep my bike for a ride.

The cousins enjoyed hanging out together before bed time.

Day 2 equals beach time! We spent the whole day on the beach, and played in the water and sand. For some it was exhausting!

Lots of bonding time.

And Prime Rib to cap off the day!

This swing really drew us in at the end of each day.

Packing to get ready to go home.

Thanks everyone for the great time!

Grandma & Grandpa "B"

Last week Grandma and Grandpa Blankenagel came to visit us! We really enjoyed their company, and we put them right to work. We are still in the midst of patching all the holes we cut for our insulation installation, and Grandma and Grandpa helped out A LOT! Now we are only left with final texturing and painting.
We also fixed the trampoline net which was falling down because the straps were weathered.

Their trip wasn't all work and no play, though. We allowed them to pick berries an the local U-Pick and then make jam for us. Oh yeah, and we also let them play with the grandkids while Sarah and I got in a movie. Wait, did I say THEY got to play? We played a little Rook with them and a round of Settlers (which was a big bonding step for some of the participants).

In all, it was great to have them around, and the girls loved every minute! We capped off their stay with a visit to Maggie Moo's for milkshakes. Thanks for coming! We love you!