It took me a while for this post...I really wanted to find pictures from our first moustache camping trip 7 years ago...but sadly, they are boxed up somewhere. But anyway...what a difference 7 years makes! Back then, Bryson was the only baby...this year there were 10 kiddos! 10! And in a few more years I am sure there will be even more, which is way exciting for me...since we are finished making babies - i have to make sure to be around people with babies. but then give them back when they cry...and poop.
So we planned this trip back in January - we tried to find a different spot to camp, but it ended up being too difficult. Plus we have been camping at Lake Cachuma for so many years, we just know it by now. There is a lot about the place I don't care for. Cachuma is pretty crowded and dirty and loud and the bathrooms are not the best in the world...oh and the BIG bush of poison oak smack dab in the middle of our campsite. I like camping with my boys because I feel like I can just say - go...run! climb trees! get dirty! and not stress about it...but i felt like every minute I was in our campsite I was telling them "no" or "don't do that" and that is just a bummer. So when I would start to feel like that I just took them down to the lake to throw rocks in the lake...build forts with fallen branches. find feathers. we stayed there for a few hours one morning and not a single fight erupted. pure bliss. i just stared at these kids in amazement that they instinctively know what to do in nature. My kids (at this age) are never bored in nature. there is always something to do. a tree to climb. a collection to start. a rock to skip across a lake. shells to find and smash the guts open. I just realize more and more as my boys get older that the most precious moments are the ones that are simplified and quiet and scaled back. we are all so much more at peace surrounded by beauty like this. This is the part of Lake Cachuma that I do like...the lake. Especially at the twilight hour. So beautiful. I will be forever taking away memories of watching the kids all play together so well - despite age differences and gender differences. I will forever take away the campfire conversations with dear friends and friendships spanning over the course of 20 years - friends where we can talk about Game of Thrones in one sentence and finding your passions and staying true to yourself in the next. I will be forever remembering that this is a crazy time for all of us and we are doing it together. Because really, do we want to do it all alone?
(To See Bryson's Summer Journal on the Camping Trip - Click HERE)
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