Camping Weekend!

We went camping all weekend. While at the pig roast a few weeks ago (see pig roast blog) we met a very nice man who invited us to come camp at his private lake. So, we took him up on his offer, of course!

The kids were excited to poop in a hole in the woods. :)

Friday night was pretty chilly, but manageable. Then there were the noises. Hard to describe, but a deep guttural growl, in a pattern. With some puppy like high pitched sounds. When the owner of the lake came to check on us in the morning, he told us it was the local black bear. Apparently its mating season, and that's what we heard!

Sat night at 3 am, I heard thunder, so I woke up Bryan and we spent some time putting thing in the van to keep dry. While trying to go to sleep, I heard the bears again. So neat! Odd sounds. We're not new to night time animal sounds, and know what deer and raccoon sound like, but we knew this was something much different.

We saw water snakes and frogs. Brayden found a newly dead bull frog. The kids wanted to know why he died, so we dissected him. We found that he ate flies and some plant matter. Most interestingly, we found a large bee in his mouth, so we think maybe that was the cause?

Anyway, we had a great time. Brayden said his favorite part of the trip was the kayak. Rylan's favorite part was "cutting open the dead frog to see its guts"...ah, boys.

*The pictures are uploading in various orders for some reason, so these are not in chronological order, but I'll still describe:

We did some fishing.
The lake has bass, bluegill, and trout. It's stocked each March.

This is one of 9 lakes in Pa that has a 6.5 pH year round, and grows freshwater clams!

Of course, we hunted salamanders

The kids (and US!) learned to kayak! They did SO well, they were even playing "limbo" under the dock!

The dogs got pretty worn out. So did their paws.

Bryan's limbo under....

And out after hitting his head

Rylan's limbo under...

And out!

Can you believe a 4 year old can kayak? He can even dock it on his own!

Racing Daddy

Bray happy to be a nature boy

Muddy feet and all

Rufus was pretty grumpy, but had fun chasing frogs

This is Rylan sneaking on the table looking for chocolate while I was busy taking pics of Bryan and Brayden in the kayaks

Even Neena liked to kayak!

Beautiful lake

Morning mist- at night all the steam was amazing too

Bryan took the kids out on a canoe

Where we slept (dogs to the right)

Awaiting S'mores

Getting the s'mores ready

We all had a great time, however this is what I couldn't tear my eyes away from:

The empty chair, and the fishing pole sitting at the beginning of the dock.
Such a great place.... a place my Dad would have LOVED.

Its been 5 years since his sudden death, and its still so hard. Maybe even harder now that the kids are getting older, and enjoying so many of the activities he would love to share with them.

I wish he was there with us