Pleasant and Eventful Weekend

My family decided to go camping over this last long weekend. Since I had already promised a friend that I would babysit very late into the evening, Matt and Haleigh headed out on Saturday afternoon and I planned to join them on Sunday morning. We were meeting friends that we have not seen in quite a while, the weather was supposed to be perfect, and we were all quite excited. Our friends called at the last minute and said they were unable to make it to our original destination because there was entirely too much snow, so they ended up heading to another beautiful area slightly closer to our home. This turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events.
You see, Saturday evening I needed to leave my house to attend a get-together. I woke the little girl I was babysitting up from her nap and proceeded to get ready to leave. Then, I proceeded to look for my keys for a full 20 minutes. I started to panic, and looked some more. I called the person I was supposed to be visiting and explained my dilemma, then I looked some more. Finally, I accepted the fact that my husband had left my house and headed to the woods with BOTH SETS OF KEYS! Fortunately the change of camping locations had put him in a spot that actually had cell phone reception! I wasn't able to make my party, but I did manage to go camping. My poor husband had to come and get me at 7:00 in the morning, but I made it. And it was worth it. We camped on Lake Cushman, which has entirely too many people for my liking in the summer but is serene and practically isolated in the winter. It was cold, but it was gorgeous. We built a lovely bonfire, and Haleigh helped, too!

She thoroughly enjoyed it when the sun went down and it got verrrrry chilly. I had so much fun watching her poke sticks in the fire until the ends burned orange, then wave them around in the dark and watch the patterns it made. This was one of my most favorite things to do when I was younger! These pics are blurry, but I think they are cool anyway!


On our last day, we went to explore a trail that looked interesting. It was lovely, but do you remember all the terrible wind storms and flooding we had back in December? Well, this is what that kind of weather does to heavily forested areas. We couldn't even tell where the trail was most of the time because you couldn't see it under the carpet of limbs and fallen trees.

This particular tree just blew my mind. What kind of force does it take to shred hardwood?

I forgot to mention that it was very cold on this trip. You might have guessed that, considering it is February, and we were at relatively high elevations. The weather was so sunny and wonderful, though, that I never really got too chilly. In fact, I would have slept like a baby lulled to sleep by peace and quiet if it were not for the fact that the air mattress slowly deflated as we slept on it. :-) Imagine my surprise at being awakened in the middle of the night by the feel of hard ground and a few uncomfortably positioned rocks. I survived, though, and it was so nice to get away for a few days and enjoy nature.