Sly Park Lake Camping Trip

By far, the highlight of our time in California was our family camping trip. For our first camping trip (with kids in tow), we opted for an old childhood standby of mine, Sly Park Lake. This beautiful lake is only 15 minutes from my parents house, which made it perfect for a first campout. If nothing else, we knew we could load up at midnight and drive home if it was a fiasco! But it wasn't.

Sly Park Lake holds so many memories for me a child. For years I attended Girl Scout Day camps there. As a family we would picnic, swim, and canoe on the lake. As a college student home on summer break, I would meet friends for a swim across the (narrow part) of the lake. I was excited to take my girls there and start forming their memories of this beautiful lake.

We loaded up, set up camp, swam, canoed, kayaked, played in the woods, chased ducks, ate camping food, make smores, sat around a campfire, slept in a tent, woke up way too early with the sun, and just had a fantastic time spending time with our family. Our girls are already asking for the next trip.

Our littlest camper.

Our nature girl.

All the dirt on these kids was already coating them at about an hour into the trip. That's quality camping!

First campfire smore. Sure we had done BBQ smores, but really they are not even in the same class.

Alden approves, too.

Ruthie and Hannah, the self-proclaimed "3 Year Old Blondie Girls." Funniest line from these two was in the truck driving to the lake. Hannah said, "Roofie what are you doing?" Ruth responded with, "Just picking my nose." Hannah said, "Wow. I like to do that too!! It must be because we are both 3 year old blondie girls." Yup, that's my girl!

Grandpa teaching Hannah the art of whittling.

Mad LOVED this boat floatie thing.

Lake fun.

I love this picture of my dad.

A little kayak action.

The 5 kiddos in front of my parents VW westie. This westie takes them on camping adventures all over the place!

The 3 year olds practicing driving the westie.

Sweet Mad at the end of the trip.

So tired. . . . about a minute after I took this she had a massive blow out. In her last diaper. We wrapped her in a towel and headed home. What a messy way to end a quality campout!