Camp Richardson Camping

We camped over Labor Day weekend with the Gallardo's and Krengels in Lake Tahoe. The Strattons were supposed to join us but the boys got sick the night before. So sad :( We arrived Friday evening and while the guys set up the tents Dee and I took the girls and got pizza for dinner. 

Jack and Abby in front of our tent. They LOVE camping!

The girls getting cozy at our campsite

The boys snuggling up with an iphone :p

In the morning the guys made a yummy breakfast and we packed a picnic lunch to play at the beach all day. I wish I had a picture of the deliciousness! Eggs, bacon, fruit etc. So yummy!

A day at the beach is at the top of our list of favorite things! The kids had a blast!

Freddie brought Ladder Golf so of course there was a serious bet going on between these two! :)

       

I have to thank Dee for 99% of these photos! She captured the weekend beautifully!

I love all of our family pic's she took and all of the rest of these actually.

My handsome husband

Me and my girl

Our lil camping family in God's beautiful creation

The Gallardo family

The Krengel family

The little boys

The big boys

The little girls

Me, Jenni and Dee

Playing hide and seek in the woods. Our campsites were backed right up to the forest so there was lots of space to explore and play.

Love this! Jack kept hiking up his shorts as he was running! Too funny!

Abby learning to balance (my favorite). It's really not her strong point.

6 dirty kids on a log!

This little fella visited us in the middle of the night last night! Seriously!

 Eric woke up to our tent caving in on our side (thank goodness it was ours and not the kids). He went into protective mode and yelled at the bear. That's when I woke up! All I heard was "Get out of here!" "Go!" And lots of other loud sounding noises. It actually worked! We heard him shuffling back into the woods and never heard from him again. Thank you Jesus! Abby never even woke up! Jack was startled at Eric yelling too and woke up asking what was daddy yelling at? We told him nothing and he went back to sleep. We of course laid in our sleeping bags eyes wide open for quite some time.

Of course we woke up our neighbors and we could hear them talking amongst themselves repeating what they heard. It was pretty scary! In the morning we saw the claw marks the bear had left in our tent. Proof! Since there was absolutely no food or toiletries in our tent the only thing we can figure is Eric cooked in the clothes he wore to bed so that may have made him come sniffing around. 

After we told the whole story to our friends at breakfast we got ready for our day. The plan was to take a bike ride around part of the lake. It was a beautiful day! The Krengel's packed up and left (I'm pretty sure that will be Jenni's only camping experience) and the guys went and rented tandem bikes for Issy and Jack. The kid were really excited and so were we!

Our family ready to roll!

Part of the beautiful bike trail

We took the trail all the way till it ended just past Fallen Leaf Lake. We stopped at Taylor Creek Visitor Center and took the walk on the trail. It was a beautiful walk and a fun little find.

They have a section of the creek you can see underwater thru a panel of windows. It's full of salmon.

Calista was mesmerized by the fish.

Heading back to our bikes Dee stole this picture. Ok she asked them to walk ahead of her and hold hands :)

We had so much fun (except for the bear attack) that we would love to make it an annual event. Pretty soon Jack will be riding his own bike and Abby will be on the tandem!