Camping, Finally

We'd been trying to get out camping with the whole family all summer and it just hadn't happened, that is until this past weekend.  Finally, we found a weekend when most of us were able to go camping and we had the added  benefit of having my sister Deb and her family with us!

We spent two nights at St. Croix State Park.  Aside from the numerous gnats, multitudes of mosquitoes and tropical temperatures we had a nice time.  Aside from swatting bugs and spraying bug repellent we also found time to hike, climb, and swim.

And now for some random camping pictures...

Here we have Deb, Raelea and Peter spending some time in the BFZ (Bug-Free Zone).

The hiking was fun, if you had on enough DEET.

 

Raelea, looking as cute as ever.

Marcus spent a lot of time doing this...

And, not to be outdone by her big brother, Zoe also found endless fascination with these two trees.

Raelea, on the other hand spent most of her time here...

Aidan decided to just attach the bug repellent fan directly to his hat.

As we always do on these camping expeditions, we managed to find and climb the fire tower in the park.  It was very windy up there but, NO BUGS!

Despite the annoyances, we had a nice time and look forward to going again, preferably after the first frost when all the bugs are DEAD.