Camping at Whiskeytown Lake

Last week we went on our annual camping trip to Whiskeytown Lake in northern California. My family has been going every year since my mom was 11 years old! It started off as just my mom's family (my grandparents and their 5 kids). And as the kids all grew and got married and had kids they each brought their families along. And now it's grown to approximately 55 people! Whiskeytown is the most beautiful Lake and has the greatest campgrounds ever as well as some beautiful hikes and waterfalls and creeks/rivers to hike up and a sandy beach and it's just perfect and well worth the 12 hour drive from Utah to continue the tradition! We always bring our newborns with us, partly because we don't want to miss out on being there and partly because it really is more relaxing than even sitting at home! My oldest sister had her 2nd baby and drove straight from the hospital up to Whiskeytown with her 3 day old son in tow! I brought Maddie when she was only 10 days old, and Logan was 2 1/2 weeks old. Here's how he spent most of his time camping:

We have a portable bassinet that can lay flat or sit up like a bouncy seat, and it had a little sun shade and then we got a mesh net thing with elastic around the edges that stretches to fit over car seats and strollers and bassinets! It was great since there were some SUPER nasty bugs up there this year that came out at night. They were HUGE (about 4 inches long) with gross crunchy outer shells and 3 inch long antennae that had spiky hair type things on the edges and they sounded like helicopters when they flew near you and then they hissed and sounded like chatting women when they landed! So so gross! A few times one landed on the net that covered Logan's little bassinet and I was SO glad that it was on there (the net, not the bug!)! But sweet little Logan loved his little home away from home and slept most of the time just like this:

It was pretty hot up there (over 100 every day) we had a group campsite that sat on a peninsula on the lake and we had a "cove" on the one side all to ourselves. So we spent pretty much all day every day in the water! The kids loved it, and it was a lot cooler down in the shade by the water so Logan liked it too! We would get up and eat breakfast, and maybe play a game or two and then go down to the water and maybe come up for lunch and then get back in the water and come up for dinner and then go back down to the water and then come back up and play a few more games and then go to bed. This picture shows how long the kids were in the water, Maddie's fingers (and everyone's) were wrinkled and white all the time! (Yes there is a fish in her hand and yes I'm pretty sure it was dead, BUT the point of the picture is the fingers people, not the dead fish!)

Here we are down at the water. Maddie and Tyler both learned to take the canoe out all by themselves (staying in the cove close to camp of course), and Nathan finally got comfortable enough to swim in the water with a life jacket but no floaty! Emily on the other had floated around the lake in a little ring all day long!

(Tyler was too busy skipping rocks to turn around for the camera)
Nathan was sitting on my lap after breakfast one morning and he kept asking me if I'd take a picture with him. So here's the result!


Peter got a little sunburned on his face and was exhausted from the sun but I love this picture of him feeding Logan with sweet little giggly Emmy Pie helping out!

I love my family so much! It was so nice to have all day every day to do nothing but play and laugh together! Tyler left for California with my mom when she went home after helping when Logan was born and stayed with his cousins until it was time to go to Whiskeytown and then he drove up with them until we got there a few days later. So we had been away from Tyler for 9 days!! And we missed him SO much! Even the kids were asking for him and excited to see him. It was a sweet reunion. We really missed our Tyler Buddy and were so glad to be with him again. Here's a picture of him after his haircut yesterday, doesn't he have the prettiest eyes? I can never get enough of them!

Oh yeah, I never blogged about his burn incident! If you look on the top left of his forehead you'll see that it's slightly lighter than the rest of his face. Well a few weeks ago he was making Macaroni and Cheese and emptied the noodles into the strainer with a little too much "gusto" and it splashed up onto his face and burned his forehead pretty bad! It blistered and then drained for a few days and this in the end result. Poor guy will likely have this scar for life. It goes up above his hairline too. But I guess he's a boy and is probably proud of his "battle wounds". We love you Tyler MacGhinnis!!