Hidden Lake

We once again made our annual end of July trek to Hidden Lake for a long weekend of camping fun! It was a little cold and rainy, but fun and beautiful despite the weather. We drove up on Thursday afternoon loaded down with 17 sleeping bags, 17 pillows, 17 backpacks, 34 pairs of shoes(which is how many shoes??), 9 bikes and helmets, 2 rubber rafts with oars and life jackets, 2 tents, 1 pop-up trailer, several blue tarps, plenty of food, lots of laugher, and a whole bunch of people!! And all that equals a whole lot of FUN!! That was only for the 17 people that came from our house...in total we had 18 kids and 12 adults for our camping party for the weekend!

Thursday afternoon we spent the time setting up camp, in the rain, and then getting dinner for our wet crew. My dad arrived with a tarp big enough to cover an acre or two so once that was up we had a dry place to hang out next to the fire. That dry area became our cooking, eating, visiting, drying out, and just hanging out area.

Friday morning we woke to no rain and what looked to be a possibly dry day! We made a big bowl of pancake batter and fried pancakes over the fire and Steve fried up about 4lbs of bacon...we always get our bacon fix for the year when we go camping! The kids were ready to go down to the lake so we got rafts aired up and swimsuits on to go check out the lake. Last year it was a very warm day and the kids had so much fun swimming and playing in the lake, but this year didn't look to be quite so warm. But I'm not sure with kids that it really matters how warm it is, they still have plenty of fun! The older kids took turns rowing the boats and giving younger kids rides and while they waited for rides they played in the shallow warmer water. After several hours of water play then it was time for lunch and a little quiet time. Quiet time didn't last for long then it was back to riding the bikes again...I forgot to mention that the kids make lap after lap on their bikes through the campground and they have so much fun! We are always amazed that the bikes can provide so much entertainment for so many hours. We also got in a game of kick-ball in the afternoon before it was time to start dinner.

Sometimes it feels like all we do is fix a meal, eat, clean up, and then it is time to do it all over again when we are out camping...but what more is there to do?!

Saturday was more of the same...playing in the lake, lots of bike riding, more eating, visiting around the campfire, and then we also went on a hike. My mom and dad had breakfast duty and stirred us up an amazing breakfast of scrambled eggs and english muffins. No one went away hungry, that's for sure! Hidden Lake campground has several nice trails to go hiking on and we usually try to go on at least one hike with everyone. We are always on the lookout for bears and especially this year since there have been several in the campground, but with our noisy bunch I 'm not sure a bear would even want to get close! Saturday evening we celebrated my dad's, Steve's, and Samking's birthdays...we had apple pies cooked over the fire to celebrate.

Sunday morning we woke to rain and it had been raining most of the night. My mom and dad made breakfast again...yummy blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes and several more pounds of bacon! After our late morning breakfast we began the packing up and cleaning up process. Lots of wet gear and stinky, smokey clothes, but we managed to get it all back together and shoved into vehicles for the ride home.

We were a bunch of tired campers, but we had alot of fun...the best part is just getting to "hang out" with family and friends and enjoy the great outdoors.