The Umpqua camping trip...Aug 2011.

It's well into October now, so it's just about the perfect time to throw in some more summer posts. Camping! At the Umpqua! Z's family's annual camping trip was just as fun this year as it has been before. Subtract the naked hippies from last year, and add in one giant cougar that was prowling about the campsites, and it just about equals out... Above we have Grandma Buttons with Bran, Nuala, Lilly, Mia, and Preston.

And Grandma with the February pair. Maeve was born on the 6th, and Gracie on the 5th. They were a lot of fun to throw together. They seemed to dig each other quite nicely.

On tinfoil dinner night, the mystery of the disappearing permanent marker was solved when one of the kids discovered that it had stowed away in their dinner. Nice and toasty!

Nuala's favoritest pink tube EVer.

The beach at our campsite.

Bran panicked a bit when the raft started to drift a little farther from shore and decided the best course of action was to bail out. Unfortunately, he bailed right over the submerged mass of sticks that creeps everybody out. Eventually Grandma rescued him.

I have crazy sisters-in-law. That is said in the best way possible. Yeah... yeah... that's right... Here was the scheme for this rafting session: All us girls layer on one tube to go over the rapids. Fun, fun, fun! We, um, bottomed out a bit over the rocks. That was painful. You can tell from the looks on McKenna's and Maria's faces. Good times. Also, we kinda lost Sari (who I borrowed this pic from) there at the beginning. Either that or she bailed out from a strong sense of self-preservation. Though in the top position she would have had the cushiest spot... I'm aiming for that next year...

See? They totally dig each other.

(No caption necessary)

Z loves a good snorkelin'. Bran is following quite closely in his daddy's footsteps (flippers?). He and Daddy found all sorts of fun little creatures to catch and look at. Bran sooo badly wants to scuba dive, and keeps asking about doing that when we move to Japan. Eventually, little dude, eventually...

Some more little rapids, up at the Falls.

Grandma Buttons was the designated stopper-of-children-going-down-these-rapids-so-they-could-get-out-and-go-again.

Maeve had a lot of fun. She loves the water. Here she is just a-tooling around in her cute little life jacket. She got really good at kicking those adorable little feet of hers and motoring around to where she wanted to go. Or at least pretending like it was where she wanted to go...

Sometimes the rapids are not-so-fun.

But look! The slippery slope that is also lots of fun! Except for when you get stuck every few feet and then your mom or dad has to follow behind and kick your tube the whole way down. Then it's still kinda fun for the tuber, but not so much for the mom or dad. Go figure.

Wheeee! There goes Bran Man!

Nuala heading up with her pink tube.

Z doing his surf thing off the falls.

Nuala heading down the falls with Z.

Bran and me going down. I'm holding his nose for him, lucky guy.

And, we surfaced! That's good. Bran is upset at how cold the water is, and that water is pretty darn cold.

Then, the moment when everyone at the falls felt extremely sorry for poor Nuala being stuck with the meanest mom ever... She wanted to go again so up we went. When we got up there, she decided she did NOT want to do it. It's slippery to walk down. She had already gone off and had liked it. So after about 10 minutes of cajoling, bribing, pleading, etc., I just pulled her on my lap and off we went. She went into immediate "falls mode" as soon as she realized there was no turning back. The whining stopped, the nose was pinched, a big breath taken...

...but she picked up where she left off as soon as we popped up. And she is LOUD when she is displeased. And displeased she was. She continued being displeased all the way out of the water, and then was seriously holding a grudge for the next half hour or so. And that's a long time for this four-year old. Then she got over it.

Gracie and Maeve enjoying a snack together. It's tough work, playing in the water AND being cute.

Grinning Gracie!

Uncle Ben (adored by all children), Zac, Nuala and Bran.

Oh, yeah, the cougar... I meant to say a little more about that, so I might as well do it here. The rangers told us that there was a cougar that had been sighted a few times near the campsites, so keep an eye out, etc. Great news to hear when you have a gaggle of kiddos wandering about. Then, a night or two into the trip, cousin Jeff and his wife, Hilary, drove up to the little bitty town to buy some ice or something, and not a mile up from our campsite, what should leap across the road directly in front of them but the cougar himself! They thought it was a deer at first, then realized that it was, indeed, a cat. A very big CAT. That was pretty comforting to hear. We kept good tabs on the tykes, though probably the cougar would be slightly offended that we thought he would want to eat one of them. I'm sure he's a much better hunter and has standards and a reputation to uphold.

Blob of chilling-out-ers. And Presto in the foreground.

Bran and Alex (Z's cousin, Robyn's, little guy) got to hang out for a while, too! They really got along well, it was cute.

My feet. And the beach.

Nuala and Lillers.

Maeve with Gracie, and Gracie's big bro and sis, Mathias and Annie.

Yummmm! Marshmallows!

Stuff it in... The stickier, the better!

Camping is fun.