Our Camping Adventure!

If you'd ever like to experience more than the usual vacation or trip, just join us on our next adventure!

The plan all along was to explore the Olympic Peninsula. We discussed various levels of accommodations from vacation homes, to hotels, cabins, RVs and camping. There really weren't any RVs available to rent and let's be honest, hotels and all that are really expensive right now. We've planned a few things for summer and fall, and spring break was meant to be our more local, less expensive trip. So... camping it was! I was nervous since we hadn't full on tent camped in awhile, so we borrowed a friends trailer called Timmy. Timmy is outfitted with a rooftop tent, and the bed of a truck that has been modded to house a two burner propane stove, water, and lots of storage for all the things you need for camping. Seemed like a good compromise.

We got all prepped and ready to go (which is a task in and of itself, am i right?). 

Tuesday we headed for Lake Quinalt. The plan was to find some dispersed camping in the area and tour the scenic loop.

We stopped at Satsop on the way which was almost a fully functional nuclear power plant until they ran out of money.

When we got to Lake Quinalt we soon learned that there was nowhere nearby to do dispersed camping, and upon the suggestion of the local ranger we headed to Kalaloch Campground and looked for a spot there. We got a lot of our stuff set up in one spot only to realize it was already reserved (not the best reservation system), so we found another site and got all set up for the evening.

Interestingly enough, we were already planning on making a stop at the Kalaloch Campground because this is where you can park and head down to the beach to see what they call the Tree of Life. So instead of a quick pit stop, we spent the evening down on the beach right at sunset. It was really beautiful and one of the sandier beaches I've seen on the coast. 

Here's the Tree of Life behind us. It's one of those parts of nature that defies the odds and makes for a good photo-op.

Cade stayed down at the beach until sunset and snagged a few more awesome pics while we got dinner ready.

After some time on the beach we needed to head up to the campsite to cook before dark. Our first night was one of our more traditional camping meals- pizza subs. You buy a few loaves of french bread, cut them longwise and line the inside with cream cheese, pizza sauce, pepperoni and cheese. Wrap in foil and then warm up at dinner time. We used a camp oven that fit over the stove and they warmed up nicely. We setup a fire in our solo stove to keep warm and also for s'mores. 

It was quite cold that first night- so much that I really had a hard time sleeping at all. I'm getting too old for this you guys.

Next morning Dan braved the cold and got some water on to boil for oatmeal and coffee, and of course poptarts and yogurt for the win! 

This is when the real adventure begins. See, our camp neighbor approached and asked for help. Supposedly he had set up camp there and then went out to explore the forest roads in his Hyundai Accent. It broke down and he had to walk back to the campground. He thought his phone and wallet were back at camp but it turns out they're in his car, which now he can't find. Dan kindly takes him back out to his car-- only after two hours of searching they can't find it at all. He uses Dan's phone to reach out to family and he has a sister who lives in Tacoma but she's out of town. Her husband says he could maybe come help Saturday or Sunday, and this was on Wednesday, and it's cold and he only has some food, and no phone and wallet. Dan brings him back to camp and isn't sure what to do to help him next, so we go on with our plans.

Meanwhile the boys and I had just hung out at the beach and our campground, and it was cold... we were very glad when he came back and we could warm up in the car.

Since we didn't do the scenic drive of Lake Quinalt the day before, we went back to do that. This is a 31 mile loop that has lots to see and explore along the way. 

My boys looooove skipping rocks, and they're good at it too. This creek and bed of rocks had SO many perfect skipping stones. Heaven!

Elk!

By the end of our drive it was beginning to rain. An omen of the rest of our camping time. We stopped at Ruby beach before returning to our campsite for the night. Ruby Beach is really not far from our beach at Kalaloch, but it's vastly different. All rock, very little sand, lots more driftwood, and seastacks!

See that big bluff with trees on it? There was a section of the beach that connected to it and I decided I wanted to go all the way out to it. We had to cross some water so Cade stayed behind with the dog.

Made it to the bluff!

A fallen cedar tree

Once back at the campsite we quickly cooked up some fajitas (i had already cut and marinated the meat and veggies so it was just a simple sizzle and assembly job). We ate inside the annex of the rooftop tent to stay dry and discussed the future of our trip. We knew we'd be camping there that night, but our plan of 3 nights was seeming cold and wet. We decided as a family to alter the trip by one day, but still drive out to Cape Flattery and then head home. We also decided to offer Brandon, the guy from the other campsite, a ride home to Tacoma- he'd just have to tag along on our sight seeing a bit.

Here's us playing Euchre in the boys' tent to pass time and stay warm!

That night was very windy and rainy, but a touch warmer than the night before.

The next morning Brandon decided he would join us, so we got Timmy all packed up, fit Brandon's stuff in somehow, and all squished into the Xterra. Brandon sat shotgun and me and the boys and the dog got cozy in the back.

We passed through Forks on our way to WA. I know there are things to do and see here, Twilight related and not. We'll have to do that on another trip!

Cape Flattery was kind of the main part of our trip- it's the NW most point of the US that you can visit! How many people can say they've done that? And I'd heard it was beautiful. It is quite a drive though on slow, curvy roads. We left the campground around 11 and it took a few hours to make it to the trail head. 

This was a very wet and rainy day anyways, and the trail is part of a rainforest. I wasn't sure whether to be hot, cold, wet, wetter, humid, etc. ! A lot of the trail was wet and muddy, but a good chunk was raised off the ground with these boardwalks. There were little pullouts along the way for some scenic views and then at the end you're just kind of on a viewpoint over a cliff. I thought it might end on a beach since we did a lot of declining in elevation, but that's ok! It was quite unique scenery and well worth the visit.

We spotted a sea otter! No whales, unfortunately

A very wet puppy

The walk back to the car was at a steady incline, and I struggled a little bit, but all in all my stamina has slowly been improving the further I get away from 2020.

At this point it was just time to start heading back towards Tacoma to take Brandon home. The roads in this area are mostly two lane roads that are quite bumpy and curvy, and with Timmy we definitely weren't the quick ones on the road. 

The town of Sekiu and its....mascot?

This made me laugh. This is Cade and how he looked most of the ride home. You can hardly tell there's a teenager in there, and sometimes he comes out for snacks.

At some point between Neah Bay and Port Angeles we came around a bend and to our shock, there was a car in the middle of the two lanes upside down. It looked as though it had very recently crashed. Dan and Brandon immediately got out of the car and went to see if there was anything they could do. Turns out it was a 17 year old gir who had lost control and flipped her car. She was all alone on the side of the road and understandably shaky and a bit confused. We weren't the first ones on the scene, but once Dan started helping the other family that had stopped to help went on their way. She had no visible injuries and was speaking coherently so we brought her into our car out of the rain until the authorities came. I think she was incredibly lucky it wasn't worse. The EMT's put her in a collar and half backboard in order to load her into the ambulance, but I'm guessing she only had a concussion.

It was an interesting experience to say the least! It also left us out in the rain for an additional hour. We were all pretty wet and cold after Cape Flatter and the accident so drove into Port Angeles and stopped for a meal and a warm up.

After that there were no more adventures delaying us from dropping Brandon off. I hope he is able to find his car and get it working, and we're not sure if we took the right action to help him in the best way, but it's what we could offer at the time. I know how wet and cold I'd been at the campground and he would've been like that for 4-5 more days until he got proper help. 

We got ourselves home around 10:30 and immediately set a few things up in our garage to dry. Needless to say we were glad to be in our warm beds that night. This girl is done with tent camping. I love going to explore and see all these amazing things, but I need a few comforts to let the joy override the discomforts I guess!

Want to join us on our next trip? You never know what you might get!

Rolling Along

We had a very music-filled Christmas. It felt like pre-Covid times again where our calendar was just full of performances. Sometimes I almost forget what it's like to sit in the audience and hear music because we're so busy being in all the things! AND our marching band season was still going strong because the football team was doing so well. They made it to the State championship and WON! Go YELM!

This is a picture of Dan and Alex that was taken at the Army Band holiday party. They're wearing our favorite ugly christmas sweater.

The holidays definitely mean treats, which means Alex was baking! Look at his goodies he did for his bake sale! Everything was so good!

After a few crazy weeks of holiday shindigs, we were able to enjoy some family time. We spent the week before christmas doing things like making poptart gingerbread houses and decorating cookies with friends. The week after Christmas we drove out to Boise to spend the New Year's holiday with his family.

We met up with our friends the Bennetts who left us in Washington and moved home to Jerome, Idaho. We enjoyed some time at the hot springs just chatting and catching up!

The foutz family does a yearly bingo on New Years Eve, it was fun!  And alex wanted to bake for everyone :) 

Fast forward a few months and it's 2023! We all hit the ground running after our holiday celebrations. I started my full time job teaching Elementary Music. The good news is that the more I'm in the classroom, the better I feel. It's hard coming in the middle of the school year and trying to get to know over 700 students. I work at two schools and see each kid once a week, K-5. That's a lot of faces! There's been a bit of a learning curve for me with classroom management and lesson planning. I have a resource to draw from for curriculum, but it's still a lot of work planning lessons for all the different ages I see.

I feel like January we were just in the deep trenches and now we're kind of pulling out for a breath. I had a lot of other previous commitments that kept me busy on weekends and evenings after work. We finally had a Saturday to ourselves and so we went to Tacoma for the annual Monkeyshine hunt. These are glass emblems that are hid during the Lunar new year timeframe. This year is the year of the rabbit, so other local artists will hide their creations too. We didn't find a glass orb, but found this resin bunny head!

Valentine's came and went, and that meant it was a great time for a date to Korean BBQ! It's become a tradition. And Alex had another successful bake sale. We hunted across a few cities for these pink M&M's! 

I think the kids might be starting to like me as their teacher, and learning to love music!

This weekend Cade was able to perform in the All-Northwest Honor Band. He auditioned in the fall and is the only kid in our area to make it. The conference had students from 6 states across the NW part of the US. Their performance was outstanding and I can't wait to see what Cade's musical future will be!

And here's something just to let you know that the cat and dog tolerate each other well enough. They play fight all the time and fight for our attention. :)

Fall 2022

And suddenly it's December! Here's some of our events from the past few months.

My birthday! I'm 41 and feel 82. For celebrations we made some sopapillas and played ticket to ride!

Homecoming happened pretty quickly in the school year, and of course Cade asked Mackenzie!

Aren't they so cute together??

He made her his favorite meal and they had some sparkling cider. Weather was perfect!

Coordinating crazy socks

Last week of September Dan and Joe went on a 4-5 day motorcylce ride down the Pacific Coast Hwy

Isn't Apollo looking so cute for the fall?

For our 19th Anniversary we spent the day at Mt. St. Helens. I was the only one in the family who hadn't been there. It was an enjoyable day. I even attempted a 3 mile hike and definitely struggled the last mile. I'll blame on the elevation... not anything else I've been dealing with the last 2 1/2 years! ;)

Cade is doing a dual credit program with the local community college which has actually really freed up his schedule since all of his classes are online. Now he only goes in to school for Band first period, and the men's choir is 2nd period so he got suckered into joining. I think he actually really enjoys it!

Veterans Day ends up being a busy one for our family with lots of performances around that time. I just wanted to share a pic of Dan all dressed up and performing!

Here's Dan on a non-musical Army type day. They had range qualifying and he had pizza delivered to his soldiers that had to stick around for a long day.

Our 2022 Halloween pumpkins!

Cade's drippy skull

Dan's funny face. This pumpkin naturally laid on its side. Perfect for a unique design!

My creepy cat- inspired by our new kitty

Alex's creation based on a character in the Portal games

Cade's costume. He likes these masks

Dan used Cade's mask from last year, and paired it with his motorcycle suit to creep out kids at the trunk or treat. He spoke an alien language and everything

Alex with his friends who made these costumes from scratch! Lots of work and fun making themselves look like Hollow Night characters

Halloween evening we invited the two Cornwall families over for dinner, trick or treating, donuts and games!

Tortellini soup

Alex was dying to make his own old-fashioned donuts. Yum!

First band concert of the year. Both my boys are in the same perfoming group and doing awesome things to help out their band program this year. Cade actually played Euphonium and french horn on this concert, and of course alex was on trumpet. 

About a week later Cade had an honor band convention called WIBC. It was a little bittersweet because he had been sick all week leading up to it and wasn't sure he'd be able to go. Then Mackenzie got sick the night before and definitely wasn't able to participate. He was tired but I think he still had a wonderful musical experience, which is what it's all about, right?

We finally put up all my metal signs downstairs. Love it!

And believe it or not we're still going strong with attending Football games with the marching band. The Yelm football team was undefeated through the regular season and has just kept winning each game. They made school history by making it to the semi-final game, which we also won. We're heading to the State finals in a few days against another undefeated team. Should be a great game, and what an accomplishment for Yelm High School to be there. We love that the administration has been supportive of the band and letting them go to the away games to keep the team spirit going! 

Well, here's evidence that Christmas is well under way. I love little moments like this where the kids still participate in the simple things that bring holiday cheer into the home. Here's to a wonderful holiday season- and that maybe you've already gotten this awful sickness that's been going around and can enjoy your December bug-free!

Oh! And in January I start a long-term sub job here in the Yelm school district. I'll be working with two of the elementaries as a full time elementary music teacher through the end of the school year. I'm a bit nervous, but it will really help our family out and maybe just maybe I won't die from the fatigue. Send me your prayers in January!