Camping at Pyramid Lake

We went camping! In February we thought it'd be fun to go camping over Memorial Day weekend since Jake would be out of school for the summer. We haven't done a legit camping trip, pretty much ever other than one or two over-nighters. Never with three children. Lots of places were booked up but we found this little gem of a spot near Pyramid Lake, CA. It's about 2 hours from where we live in Yucaipa so close enough but far enough kinda thing. We invited friends to book the weekend with us and were able to con the Hebdon and Price family into spending a weekend in the wilderness with the Frys. The area we camped in was beautiful, the weather was perfect during the day, the lake was really pretty and kinda crowded but not bad for a holiday weekend in my opinion. 

We planned for weeks before and made a menu for every dang meal. All of our food was really good. Next time I won't plan on anything for lunches besides some sandwich fixings and snacks. Our breakfasts and dinners were so yummy and filling. We cooked in dutch ovens that Brandon had for the weekend and had some GOOD meals! Mountain man breakfast and peach cobbler were some of the favorites. We brought ingredients to make our own ice cream in a bag, turned out great and it was fun to do. And we tried the recipe to bake brownies in orange peels, those were also tasty. 

The kids had fun climbing the mountain sides right by us, playing with friends, riding bikes, going on a few short hikes with dad, swimming at the lake, roasting mallows and sleeping in tents. All three did really well sleeping, better than I anticipated. Griffin the dog did way better than I thought he would too. The Prices left Sunday morning. That night after playing cards and going to bed the wind picked up and by 1:30am we decided it was time to go. None of the adults could fall asleep. The wind was blowing so hard and was so gusty that we kept being sandblasted in the face. Luckily we had packed just about every thing up so we really only had to wake up the kids and get them in the car, take down the tents and go. It was just in time too because as we were taking down Megan and Brandon's B&B, I mean tent, (their tent was HUGE!) it caved in due to the wind. We're guessing the wind was blowing atleast 40mph with stronger gusts. It was nuts! And as we were driving out at 2am we noticed lots of people in their cars, lots of EZ-ups blown over and trash everywhere. We pulled into the drive way just after 4am and took the most amazing shower ever after getting the kids into their beds. 

Even after the little fiasco that had us coming home in the middle of the night we still had a blast this weekend and look forward to camping again.

Brandon and Jake were our official fire/cook guys and did super great

My handsome mountain man

Cooper showing off the tent site

lots of bike rides and walks all weekend

Colton was thrilled he could turn the water on

Making our official camp flag

Brandon's patriotic Memorial Day flag

Nicole, Brach and their sleeping contraption

Boys being boys

Cooper P. showing our camp flag, the kids named our camp "Camp Mountain" and each had a nickname

I call this one, "Men around a Fire"

Brach and Connor

BF and GF Connor and Adele

Jake had smudges on his forehead and we let him walk around like that for a while

Griffin the dog

Lots of climbing

more climbing and hiking

....also....lots of peeing in the woods

Beans and weenies! and Meg and B

weenie roastin'

ice cream makin'

s'more assemblin'

the kids, Connor was happy all morning til he biffed it in the gravel. hated life after that.

there weren't showers so we washed our hair in a bucket Sunday morning before some "church" we had. Best hair dunk in a bucket I've ever had!

taking a big walk before the lake on Sunday

couple of the year! Love these guys :)

Pooped.Out.

BFFs

BFFs again

Polka dot dancer

peach cobbler

brownie oranges

view from the top of camp....by the bathrooms

before the wind