The Luangaphay Family: First Camping Trip

On Thursday Johnny and I took the kids on their very first camping trip. We reserved a tent camping site at Ponderosa State Park in McCall. We arrived around 1pm and set up our tent. Then the whole family rode our bikes down to the lake for a nice swim and building of sand castles. The kids rode their bikes. I did have to push Piper on her bike but she did her best to ride over half of the trip to the beach. I love Payette Lake. It is colder than Cascade Lake (the lake that my parents cabin is on) but it is soooo much cleaner. The kids weren't at all afraid of swimming in the lake. They just walked right out into the lake (with life jackets on) and started swimming.

After a nice swim we went back to the campsite to get ready to head out for another bike ride (this time the kids were in the bike trailer). We decided it would just be easier to head into McCall for meals. So we headed out on our bikes to have dinner at the Toll House. Pennington fell asleep on the bike ride in so he took a nice little nap in the booth at the restaurant. After dinner we headed back to the campsite.

When we got back to the campsite we decided to go for a little walk before it go to dark. On our walk we started to hear some music. Turns out there was a Viola Camp. We ended up stumbling upon a mini concert. The kids were so intrigued with the orchestra. We can already tell Pennington has a really love for music. Both kids sat there for at least 5 songs adsorbing everything. At one point two deer walked by behind the orchestra. It was so awesome. We then headed down to the lake to watch the sunset. After watching the sunset, we headed back to our campsite for Smores and bedtime.

The kids were really excited to sleep in the tent. It was hard to get them to go to bed. Finally they fell asleep and pretty much slept the whole night. For the kids birthday's my parents got them each there very own sleeping bags. The kids were really excited to sleep in them. Pennington loved it so much he didn't want to get out of it in the morning.

For breakfast we decided to drive into town to eat at the Pancake House. After breakfast we headed back to the campsite to pack up everything and then head out on a bike ride to the top of Ponderosa State Park. I don't think we realized that it was going to be 3 mile bike ride with about a 1000 foot elevation gain. Lets just say I think Johnny was a bit tried of pulling the kids in the bike trailer by the time we got to the top. The view from the point was incredible. The kids enjoyed getting to see all the boats on the lake. The bike ride down was really fun since it took about 20% of the time it took to ride to the top.

After our bike ride we headed to the Groves Family cabin. Below are some pictures from the first camping trip.

Watching the Sunset