Memorial Day weekend–Lake Chelan

We had a fun long weekend at Lake Chelan to celebrate Memorial Day weekend this year.  We took the boat and this was Sara’s first camping trip. Here is our trusty steed.

 

Heading over the mountains is no easy task with two kiddos, so we were on the lookout for somewhere to stop and let the kids play.  We found Smallwood Farms right outside of Leavenworth.  It had toys, chickens, a petting zoo, goats, swings, you name it.  All FREE!  We were almost the only ones there and got the wiggles out of the kids. 

Sara was enthralled with the chickens.  She first saw them and her face just froze.  It was like she was saying “Mama, look at those animals.  They are r.e.a.l. animals, but they aren’t cats or dogs.  What are they?”

Alex got to feed the goat and really liked that.

And we pushed on to Lake Chelan.  We arrived at our campsite early afternoon and started by setting up our campsite.  This is Alex’s 4th camping trip and I don’t know if he actually remembers or just remembers looking at pictures, but setting up the tent is what Alex wanted to do.  And that is exactly what he got to do (with Dad).

 

 

This being Sara’s first trip, she was looking all around her at everything that was new.  New tent, new mattress, new sleeping bags, new picnic tables, new everything!

We happened to be on a campsite that was right next to some heavenly scented lilacs.  MMMMM!

 

We arrived on Thursday and had the campground pretty much to ourselves.  There were a few people here and there, and it was nice to have some quiet time.

 

We found out that Sara loves Mike’s.  LOVES Mike’s.  Well, not Mike’s itself, but the bottle.  Every time we would open one up, she would want the bottle so badly.  So we would just pour out our drink and give it to her.  Happy girl.

There was a big playground at the state park, oh what fun!

Not necessarily a good one for little 1 year olds, but with Mama or Dada there – she was in heaven.

Of course, Alex knew just how to do it all.

Thursday and Friday were actually really nice, we had some sprinkles and a short rain cloud, but otherwise it was beautiful.  Although, the lake was very low (apparently lower than usual because of the cold spring not melting the snow as fast as usual).  The yellow buoys are the swim buoys.

 

Lance is the man who does all the cooking while we are camping.  And he’s good at it.  He made us pancakes and sausages one morning and oatmeal and hot chocolate (with marshmallows) the other mornings.  Here he is flipping the pancakes with Alex anxiously awaiting.

 

Chow down!

 

And some resident ducks who would always know just when we were eating and come pick up anything that Sara would throw down.  She was so excited about them coming, she even learned to say Duck (sounded like “Duh”) and Quack Quack (“Wah Wah”). 

We took the boat out on Friday, Lance was chopping at the bit.  We had never been to Lake Chelan before and so we didn’t know if it was normal, but there was a lot of wood in the lake.  We don’t know what exactly happened, but part of the outboard broke off seemingly by a piece of wood getting stuck and causing the outboard not to be able to go down all the way.   You would think the prop would break first, but the side of the outboard has a big chunk out of it and it’s just gone.  It does seem to run fine with this piece missing, but it will be forever a mystery.  Here is Lance getting in the water at the dock after we first started the boat and took it out, it made some funny noises.  We came back to the launch and he checked it out.  Cold water, I hear.  Lance was pretty upset and I think Alex sensed something was wrong with the boat right after Lance did and was totally scared our first ride.  He screamed the entire 20-30 minutes.  We came back in finally, and then about 1/2 hour after we got off, said he wanted to go on the boat again?!?

 

Sara, our little birdie.

Boat motors make excellent napping conditions.  (plus snuggly monkeys and a tight life jacket)

We found a nice beach that would’ve been underwater if the level of the lake were up.  It was warm in the sun, but not hot.  Hence, the sweatshirt and shorts on Alex. 

We went to get pizza on Friday night and it was very nice out.  Sunny, upper 60’s.  Alex was wearing his shades and had a lollipop.  Too cute!

 

The pizza place “Local Myth Pizza” we went to was delicious!  We had there “Crispy Pepp” pizza which was fantastic, and a greek salad!  We would highly recommend this place!  We took the pizza and fixings over to Beebe Bridge State Park on the Columbia River.  It was very nice, quiet park. 

 

No rowdy, crazy, drinking at 9 am, CWU college crazy campers.  It was nice to get away from them for a bit.  In fact, those crazy campers have inspired Lance and I to seek out “alcohol free” camp grounds.  They were not TOTALLY absolutely awful, but they were so highly annoying.  We would even be willing to consider not taking alcohol on our next camping trip should be enough explanation.

 

Playing on the beach.

And now some iPhone pictures:

The kids had a good time, and we decided to come back on Sunday.  The kids slept most of the way home and slept soundly when we got them home, clean and in their own beds.  Alex looks so cute when he’s asleep in the car – all tuckered out.

 

And on the way home – a deer jumped out at just the wrong time and hit the boat, didn’t do any damage.  The deer did not make it and was killed instantly.  The truck and boat are a big force to move (or stop).  Lance saw the deer, but could not stop in time.  We feel HORRIBLE.  Absolutely horrible.  Lance knows he did everything he could, but it still sucks.  The deer was crossing highway 2 and was probably going to get struck by someone else, if it hadn’t been us. 

 

Alex was awake when it happened, but did not see it.  He just felt a bump and heard us talking about “did it break anything”  “is it OK?”, and got pretty worried.  He was so tired, I just told him we hit a bump and everything was fine.  He fell back asleep.  Lance and I thought that we were pretty lucky.  The deer could’ve been hit on the front of the truck, come through the windshield, done damage to the truck or boat, or both, caused a crash, but luckily none of these happened. 

 

Unluckily for the deer.  

 

So sorry deer, so sorry.