Camping with the Terry's - Fort Lewis

We attempted one camping trip over the summer.  I wasn't sure how it would go, with Kate being just 9 months old - but we had a great time!  Our friends, the Terry's had never been camping before, so we decided to go someplace close and only for one night.  We had such a great time, that next summer, we hope to go for longer!

Scott had been to this great camp site with the boy scouts.  The site is right on Puget Sound - in fact it's right next to a ferry dock.  It's also located right below Fort Lewis, which is base from WWII.  I have fond memories of exploring Fort Lewis as a kid.  We used to drive up there as a family.  When my mom hosted her family reunion here in Washington, we even had family pictures taken at the fort.  It's a cool place to explore!  The kids loved it!!  Jeff, Quyen and I took the kids up earlier in the day, so we could scout out a camp site (it's a first come, first served site).  Once the site was settled on, we did some exploring up at the fort.  Warning - lots of pictures!!

It was a sunny day - but there was quite the breeze - hence the shorts and sweatshirts for the kids!

Not sure what Jackson is doing here...

 After exploring the fort, we headed back down to the camp site, and played in the sand while waiting for Scott.  He ended up having to drive around, because the wait for the Whidbey Island ferry was so long.  But, the kids were well entertained!  Adam and Xander built some sort of stick fort.

Kate enjoyed watching...

Once Scott got there, we set up camp.  The kids had fun helping set the tents up and exploring the insides.

Then we cooked some dinner...

 And sat around the camp fire...

And made a mess eating s'mores!!

It got cold as the sun went down!

The next morning started early with breakfast.

It was fun to watch the fog roll off over the water.

After breakfast, we did some exploring.  Scott found this birds nest...

And we watched this eagle, as well as a couple of other birds in the trees next to the campsite.  It was beautiful!

Then we did some more exploring at the fort.  Scott brought up the headlamps so they could go inside and see what they could find.

Before we headed for home, we took one last stop at the beach.  We found this cool fort, and the kids made a rock shop.  They collected tons of rocks and sold them at extremely high prices.  Too bad there wasn't more traffic - they may have made enough money to put gas in the cars!

It was such a fun little get a way.  We're looking forward to more camping next summer!