Camping at White Beach

Martin Luther King Day was our first excuse to do something cool this year. The Jenks' invited a group of friends to go camping at White Beach, a base on the Pacific side of the island. It was kind of perfect timing since I bought Spencer a tent for Christmas. This marked our very first time camping together since we've been married.

We arrived a little later in the day, so we only had about 45 minutes of sunlight. And boy was it windy! I was on kid watching duty while Spencer unloaded and set up the tent. It was practically blowing over when he was working on it, and the rain cover was flapping all over the place when he was trying to cover the tent. Shane and a few kind campers nearby came and helped him secure it all. Then we cooked tinfoil dinners on the grill and attempted to have a fire on the beach, but the wind was pretty relentless and it didn't burn for long.

At night, neither of us hardly slept a wink. I woke up several times to the rain cover flapping all over the place, and Spencer went out a few times during the night to re-secure it. Then Shawn was in and out of my very narrow mummy sleeping bag all night, sometimes being totally content to have his legs in it, and other times thrashing and crying until his legs were free. I found myself contorting my body all night so that I could give him maximum space while not being too uncomfortable myself. It was pretty much a failure. Every time I opened my eyes I was hoping to see the sun rising, but far too many times it was just pitch black. Pretty much the longest. night. ever.

See our orange tent, all crazy and windblown?

The next morning, however, made up for it (again, minus the wind).

Spencer was up with the sun to catch the sunrise.

After a morning bottle, Shawn hit the playground.

He's become quite independent on slides.

We had a delicious group breakfast, then Spencer packed up the whole camp site while Shawn and I joined the other moms near the water and scoured the beach for cool shells and sea glass. When the sun finally peaked out, it turned the water the loveliest shade of bluish-green.

There were a few cool ships (Destroyers maybe?) in port right by the camp site.

We didn't get a single picture of Sydney. She was running around with the Jenks' boys having the time of her life running to different play areas, digging holes in the sand, throwing shells in the water, and building sand houses for hermit crab families. She thought camping was awesome! Despite our sleepless night, we're hoping to do it a lot more.